Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

DUNDEE CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read a Second time, and ordered to be considered Tomorrow.

GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read a Second time, and ordered to be considered Tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE

Clerical Grades (Outdoor Work)

Mr. Wilkes: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General what arrangements exist to enable established members of the clerical grades in his Department who, because of war service, are recommended for health reasons to seek outdoor work, to be transferred to appropriate duties without loss of pay or prospects of promotion.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Burke): When a member of the Post Office staff is recommended for health reasons to seek a particular type of duty every effort is made to comply with the medical recommendation. The number of clerical duties containing outdoor work is, however, very small and it is not always possible to provide this type of duty for members of the clerical grades who may be recommended to seek it. Where it is possible, there would be no loss of pay but restriction to outdoor duties might lessen prospects of promotion. The ques-

tion of transfer to other grades employed on outdoor work would also be considered for officers having the qualifications required for the work.

Postal Services, London

Mr. Keeling: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General when the 7.30 p.m. and 9 p.m. collections in London will be resumed; and whether he intends to restore the midnight collection.

Mr. Burke: The 7.30 p.m. and 9.00 p.m. collections will be introduced in London oil weekdays, excepting Saturdays, towards the end of the year. The midnight collection will not be restored.

Mr. Keeling: As regards the first point, is the Minister aware that the improvement was promised for this summer and, secondly, does the non-resumption of the midnight service mean that the Government are asking the people of London to accept permanently a service inferior to that which existed before the war?

Mr. Burke: With regard to the first part of the question, the statement was that there would be a considerable improvement in many places during the summer, and generally by the end of the year. As to the second part of the question, I do not think it would be either in the public interest or in the interest of employees if postmen collected letters at midnight.

Mr. Keeling: Why not in the public interest?

Mr. Burke: Because I think it would encourage the public to go back to the old late hours from which we have got away during the war.

Mr. Keeling: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the withdrawal of the Saturday after noon delivery in Greater London has resulted in letters posted in London after the last collection on Friday evening being withheld from delivery in Greater London until Monday morning; and whether he intends to restore the Saturday afternoon deliveries.

Mr. Burke: Letters posted in London on Friday evening after the last collection are collected on Saturday morning and I regret that it is not possible to arrange for them to be delivered on Saturday afternoon in the area contiguous to London.


After the reintroduction later in the year of the 9.00 p.m. collection in London, letters posted in time for that collection will be delivered in this area on Saturday morning.

Mr. Keeling: Does this again mean that there is to be a permanent deterioration, and is it not exceedingly inconvenient for the people of Greater London?

Mr. Burke: No, Sir, there is no deterioration at all. It means that the nine o'clock collection will allow sufficient time to enable people. to post on Friday for delivery the following morning

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL INSURANCE (REGIONAL STAFFS)

Sir Waldron Smithers: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he will state, in convenient salary and regional categories, the number of staff required under the National Insurance Bill, in London, Newcastle, Wales, Scotland, and the nine regional offices, respectively; and what will be the total cost in salaries and in office rent and equipment.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): I regret that I cannot at present add to the statement I made on 30th May last at the close of the Debate on the Third Reading of the National Insurance Bill.

Sir W. Smithers: Is the Minister saying that although he is setting up this great organisation he does not know how many officials will be required; and is he aware that the estimate is about 8,000․that 8,000 more drones are to be added to the hives, 8,000 more impediments to our export trade?

Mr. Speaker: I would remind the hon. Member that insinuations and imputations in the form of a question are out of Order.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALIENS

Admission Applications

Mr. Piratin: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons in each of the priority categories have applied, or had application made on their behalf, for admission to the United Kingdom up to 31st May, 1946; how many of such applications have been

granted; and how many of such persons have entered the United Kingdom.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): Owing to pressure of work in passport control offices abroad, detailed statistics have not been kept of the numbers of applications made and of visas granted, and the information asked for in the first two parts of the Question is not available. With regard to the third part, up to 31st May 979 foreigners arriving in the United Kingdom had been identified as coming under this scheme.

Mr. Piratin: Is the Minister aware that this works out to a total of about 20 or 30 a week since the scheme was announced last November, can he declare himself satisfied with that situation and, if not, will he take steps to speed up the admission of people who have made applications?

Mr. Ede: The hon. Gentleman's arithmetic appears to be correct. With regard to whether I am satisfied or not, the reply is that I am not satisfied, but the matter is not entirely within my control. The flow is steadily increasing and I hope that the full stream will very soon be flowing.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Does my right hon. Friend know that it is being widely said that since he announced this scheme last November not a single person in a displaced persons camp in Germany has benefited by it, and can he say whether that statement is true?

Mr. Ede: I have not heard the statement and would not, therefore, like to contradict it without having an opportunity of going into details.

Naturalisation

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the number of applications for naturalisation now awaiting decision; and what prospects there are for these requests to be granted.

Mr. Ede: Over 22,000, Sir; these applications will be dealt with in accordance with the arrangements announced in my statement of 28th February as rapidly as is possible consistently with the need for making' full inquiries as to the applicants' suitability for naturalisation.

Sir T. Moore: Would the right hon. Gentleman say if there are any priorities in selection and, if so, what priorities take precedence over the others?

Mr. Ede: I would refer the hon. and gallant Gentleman to the statement I made in the House when I announced it, which indicated that certain persons who have rendered notable service to the country during the war, in the Forces and in trade, and certain other classes, have priority.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: Is the Minister aware that very considerable delay has taken place in the case of people who are good citizens and would be good citizens, and can he do something to expedite decisions in such cases?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. The grant of British citizenship is a very considerable privilege․[HON. MEMBERS: " Hear, hear."] ․and it is essential that one should establish beyond all doubt that the person to whom it is granted is worthy of the receipt of so high an honour

Mr. Piratin: Could the priority granted to those who have given service in this war be extended to persons who saw service in the 1014–18 war?

Mr. Ede: They were not included in the priority classes.

Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many of the 22,000 cases have been allotted priority?

Mr. Ede: Not without notice.

Women (Entry for Marriage)

Mr. Nally: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what were the circumstances determining his decision to grant an entry permit to Frau Maria Holy; whether at the time of granting such permit he was aware that it had been applied for to enable this lady to marry a British Regular Army officer; and if equally sympathetic consideration will be given to applications for an entry permit made for the same reason by other Austrian women of equally good character.

Mr. Ede: When a British subject who is resident in this country wishes to marry a foreign woman, it has been the settled practice not to refuse her admission to the United Kingdom, provided there is satisfactory evidence that there is no legal

obstacle to the marriage and there is an assurance that it will take place as soon as possible after her arrival. There have been several cases in which members of the Forces after returning to this country and being demobilised have applied that a German or Austrian woman may come here for the purpose of marriage, and such applications have been granted; and the same policy is followed in respect of men still serving in the Army, whatever rank they hold, provided they are serving in this country and not merely on leave from the Occupation Forces.

Mr. Nally: Am I to understand from my right hon. Friend's reply that in the case of a Serviceman being demobilised and returning to this country, his Department will look favourably upon an application from that demobilised ex-Serviceman for a permit for an Austrian or German woman to enter this country for the purpose of marrying the demobilised soldier?

Mr. Ede: I have to be satisfied that both parties are free to contract a marriage. A gentleman recently applied to my office who was obviously intending to perpetrate bigamy, and I refused permission for the woman to come to be made the victim of such a conspiracy. When I am satisfied on that score, and with the fact that security considerations are also safeguarded, permission is granted.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENT COUNTY CONSTABULARY (MOTOR CYCLES)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, when replacements are necessary, he will ensure that the Indian motorcycles now in use by the Kent county constabulary are replaced by machines of British manufacture.

Mr. Ede: As the hon. Member appreciates, this is a matter for the Kent police authority. I am informed, however, that the majority of motorcycles in use by the Kent police are of British manufacture, but that during the war it was found necessary to acquire a certain number of Indian motor cycles. It is the intention of the authority to replace these in due course by British machines.

Sir W. Smithers: May I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his answer?

Oral Answers to Questions — CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Mr. Nally: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in his review of existing criminal justice administration, he will consider the abolition of the death penalty.

Mr. Ede: All the subjects which might properly be included in a Criminal Justice Bill are now being actively considered by me.

Mr. John Paton: Is the Home Secretary aware of the proposals of the Select Committee which considered capital punishment, and reported in 1931, for the experimental suspension of this penalty for five years, and will he keep that under consideration?

Mr. Ede: I am well aware of the report to which the hon. Gentleman has alluded, and that is one of the things which is being considered.

Oral Answers to Questions — LIGHTER-PETROL, LIVERPOOL (CONVEYANCE)

Mrs. Braddock: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why permission to move lighter-petrol by road, from its place of manufacture, Liver pool, to wholesale and retail purchasers throughout the country has been with drawn; if he is aware that with the shortage of matches, the decision of his Department will cause great hardship; and whether he will reconsider the decision.

Mr. Ede: I have no knowledge of this matter. The enforcement of the Petroleum Spirit (Conveyance) Regulations, 1939, to which some forms of lighter fuel are subject, is a matter for the local authorities and if my hon. Friend will send me particulars I will have inquiry made.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE POSSESSION ACTIONS, LONDON

Mr. Sparks: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many possession orders have been granted by the court in the Metropolitan Police district on the ground of greater hardship for each month in 1946.

Mr. Ede: The available information relates only to the Metropolitan magistrates courts in which 17 possession

orders were granted between 1st January and 31st May, 1946, none of them on the ground of greater hardship.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH FASCISTS (SUBSIDIES FROM MUSSOLINI)

Lieut.-Colonel Sharp: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement on the evidence found in documents captured from the enemy that a foreign government was subsidising the British Union of Fascists.

Mr. Ede: Yes, Sir. Letters from Count Grandi, the Italian Ambassador in London, to Mussolini, have been found among the latter's papers. The relevant portion of one such letter dated 30th January, 1934, is as follows:
Mosley has asked me to express his gratitude to you for sending him the considerable sum which I arranged to hand over to him today. … He also spoke with gratitude of the simple generosity with which you accepted as a future commitment his requests for material aid…
The relevant portion of a further letter dated 1st March, 1935, is as follows:
At the moment you are spending a great deal of money in England. At any rate until a few days ago, you were giving Mosley about 3,500,000 lire a year in monthly instalments of about 300,000 lire. All this money, believe me, Duce, even on the best supposition simply goes down the drain. At the present time we should concentrate our efforts in a different direction. With a tenth of what you give Mosley, that is, with a monthly allowance to the Embassy of 35,000 lire, I feel that I could produce a result ten times better."

Lieut.-Colonel Sharp: Using the 1935 rates of exchange, can my right hon. Friend say what that payment represents in terms of British money?

Mr. Ede: On 1st March, 1935, the rate of exchange was 569/16 to 57 lire to the pound. At this rate 3,500,000 lire is equal to £60,403.

Mr. H. Hynd: May I ask what action the Home Secretary proposes to take in view of this very startling exposure?

Mr. Ede: Unfortunately, it was not illegal for Sir Oswald Mosley to receive this sum of money. I can only hope that this will be an instructive foreword to the book he proposes to publish.

Mr. Warbey: Would my right hon. Friend say, humorous as this subject appears to be to some hon. Members, that there is evidence here of traitorous activities?

Mr. Wilson Harris: Does the right hon. Gentleman know of any other sums of money being paid by other foreign Governments to any other parties in this country?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. If I come across anything like that․and I am not compelled to disclose the source of my information in certain cases․I will certainly acquaint the House.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of the statement the Home Secretary has made, will not he follow it up by publishing the names in the book found in Captain Ramsay's flat?

Mr. Ede: I do not think there is very much connection between these two. I have no evidence that Captain Ramsay received money from outside this country.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why official cognisance was not taken of this transaction at the time?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. I was not responsible at the time.

Oral Answers to Questions — JUSTICES' CLERKS

Mr. Awbery: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when legislation is likely to be introduced to give effect to the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Justices' Clerks.

Mr. Ede: I regret that it is not possible at present to say when legislation on this subject is likely to be introduced.

Mr. Awbery: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Departmental Committee has already reported to his Department, and cannot move now until his Department moves in the matter?

Mr. Ede: Yes, Sir, but, unfortunately, this is not the only matter that requires legislation.

Mr. Awbery: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department in how many cases have the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Justices'

Clerks, to pay part-time justices' clerks a personal salary, and for their staff and office expenses to be paid by the local authority, been complied with by standing joint committees: and if he will take steps to see that those authorities which have not done so, implement the report.

Mr. Ede: The existing law requires that the salary of a clerk to justices shall be an inclusive sum covering both his personal remuneration and the expenses incurred by him in the performance of his duty, including the salary of his assistants and other necessary disbursements. To alter this? requirement legislation will be necessary. A Home Office circular of 1935 recommended that specific provision for these expenses should be made when the clerk's salary is fixed, and that this provision should be adjusted from time to time to changed conditions.

Mr. Awbery: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Roche Committee of 1944 expressed an opinion that this method of payment is very unsatisfactory, and should be changed as quickly as possible?

Mr. Ede: I am aware of the Roche Committee's report, and I hope the answer I have given today will be some indication to the standing joint committees and others of the proper course they should pursue.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVILIAN PRISONERS (LETTERS TO MEMBERS)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether prisoners are permitted to write letters to their Members of Parliament in addition to their regular letters; and if such letters are subject to censorship by the prison authorities.

Mr. Ede: The primary purpose for which prisoners are allowed to write letters is to keep in touch with their friends and relatives. In view of the ample facilities which are given to prisoners to make representations to me on matters connected with their trial, conviction or prison treatment, it is a rule that prisoners are not permitted to make such representations to judges, public authorities or Departments, or Members of Parliament. Accordingly a prisoner would only be permitted to write to a


Member of Parliament in special circumstances, e.g. if he were personally acquainted with the Member or if the Member had written to him. Any such letter would be scrutinised by the prison authorities in the usual way before despatch.

Mr. Stokes: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether, in view of the extremely job lot of people who seem to get into Brixton Prison nowadays, this regulation applies to them? Surely these people have no hope whatever unless they are able at least to write to a Member of Parliament?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. Any letter that is written by a Member of Parliament addressed to me is brought to me with the utmost despatch.

Mr. Stokes: I meant from the person in prison to a Member of Parliament. I have received such letters, and they have not been stopped, I am glad to say.

Mr. Driberg: I speak subject to correction, Mr. Speaker, but is there not an absolute constitutional right on the part of a citizen to communicate with his Member of Parliament on any matter, and does not the Home Secretary's regulation seem to limit that right?

Sir Ian Fraser: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if the only ultimate sanction is for the citizen to be able to write to his Member of Parliament and not to be intercepted by the Executive?

Mr. Ede: Mr. Speaker, I understood the remark made by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) was directed to you on a point of constitutional practice. Without further instructions I should not be prepared to answer it. However, I can assure hon. Members that every letter addressed to me receives my attention at once. With regard to the question as to whether prisoners should be allowed to write to Members of Parliament, I can only say that from the numbers of letters I receive from hon. Members, I am convinced that somehow or other, prisoners have discovered a way of communicating with hon. Members.

Major Bruce: May I have your Ruling on this point, Mr. Speaker: Does a question of Privilege arise here?

Mr. Speaker: I should certainly have to take time to consider a matter of such constitutional importance; but the Speaker should not be asked to take part in supplementary questions.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF PENSIONS

Appeal Tribunals

Flight-Lieutenant Parkin: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he has now any statement to make regarding the establishment of pensions appeal tribunals on assessment.

The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Wilfred Paling): I have considered this matter in the light of the views expressed by my Central Advisory Committee and in consultation with my Nobie Friend the Lord Chancellor and the other authorities concerned. It is proposed to seek an Order in Council appointing a date on which Section 5 of the Pensions Appeal Tribunals Act, 1943, shall come into operation as regards both those interim assessments and the final decisions or assessments against which that section gives a right of appeal. I anticipate that the appointed date will be some time in July. In the course of the discussions with my Advisory Committee stress was laid on the need for early provision for the hearing of appeals against interim assessments and in the early stages priority will probably be given to appeals of this type.

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: Is it proposed to have these tribunals in Scotland?

Mr. Paling: In the course of time, I think that will be so.

Hospital Cases (Treatment Allowances)

Mrs. Castle: asked the Minister of Pensions why a disabled ex-Serviceman who is admitted to a Ministry of Pension's hospital for observation prior to the settlement of his pensions claim is refused treatment allowances for himself and family; and whether he will take steps to put such men on the same basis as those admitted for treatment.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: Normal treatment allowances are payable in respect of a condition which has been accepted as due to war service. Where a married ex-Serviceman is admitted to hospital in


order to determine the nature of any disability from which he may be suffering and whether or not it is due to war service any National Health Insurance Benefit or other payment to which he is entitled is brought up to at least 42s. a week. This is the rate which is proposed in similar circumstances under the new National Insurance Bill. In addition an allowance of 5s. a week is given for each child. No deduction is made for maintenance and if the condition is subsequently accepted as connected with war service normal treatment allowance rates are paid with retrospective effect.

Mrs. Castle: While appreciating the fact that the grants may later be retrospective, docs not my hon. Friend think that the actual operation of the arrangement causes an interim condition of hardship? Is he aware that I have sent him particulars of a case where a man who is in hospital for observation is given anxiety by the knowledge that his wife and two children are having to manage on just over £2 a week?

Mr. Paling: My trouble is that I have not any power to pay him full rates until he is actually admitted for pension. When he comes in for observation, he is actually a civilian but if, as a result of observation, he is admitted for pension, then we pay full rates, and we pay them retrospectively.

Personal Case

Mr. Wilkes: asked the Minister of Pensions what decision has-been reached in the case of 3608154 Private Henry Rush, particulars of which were sent to him by the hon. Member for Newcastle, Central, on l9th March and 17th April last.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: As the hon. Member is aware, inquiries, which were unavoidably protracted, have had to be made in this case. I am glad to say that as the result of the additional information now available Mr. Rush's condition has been accepted as pensionable.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Requisitioned Premises (Rents)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Health why he has sent a series of circulars to local authorities to increase

rents, when the local authorities do not receive the rents but account for them to his Department.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Key): I would refer the hon. Member to the letter of 2nd April to local authorities, which was published in HANSARD of 8th April, and which set out the basis on which the rents of requisitioned premises should be assessed. In this matter local authorities act as agents for the Government. In some cases they had been charging too little, in other cases they had been charging too much; there were, therefore, both increases and decreases of rent.

Sir W. Smithers: Is it not a fact that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health is a party to the rent racket? May I have an answer?

Local Authority Proposals

Mr. Dumpleton: asked the Minister of Health how many local housing authorities have submitted proposals under Circular 92/46; and how many new houses such proposals cover.

Mr. Key: My right hon. Friend regrets that his records do not distinguish houses provided under the arrangements being made with small builders or with private builders owning their own land, from houses built following competitive tenders.

Workers Houses, West Sussex (Repairs)

Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the effect of regulations recently made by him is to suspend indefinitely the long term plans for the repair and modernisation of numerous workers' houses in West Sussex; and what steps he proposes to take to prevent the consequence of houses becoming uninhabitable and the housing shortage in rural areas being accentuated.

Mr. Key: My right hon. Friend is afraid that with the present shortage of building materials and components, priority must be given to the building of new houses and there will inevitably be less available for the improvement of existing dwellings. Special arrangements have been made to ensure that materials can be obtained,


where required, to comply with a statutory notice, or to avoid risk to health, or danger to the structure.

Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: Does the Minister appreciate that houses are falling into an uninhabitable condition? Will he not consider the advisability of preventing them becoming uninhabitable as a quicker expedient than building new houses?

Mr. Key: As soon as materials are in such supply as to make it possible to allocate them for repair, that will be done, but we regard the use of materials for building new houses as having the priority claim.

Possession Orders, London

Mr. Sparks: asked the Minister of Health the number of families rehoused by local authorities as a result of possession orders granted by the courts in the Metropolitan Police district for each month in 1946; and the number of families for whom local authorities had no other accommodation than rest centres and institutions on the date such orders became operative, respectively.

Mr. Key: My right hon. Friend is aware that difficulty is being experienced in such cases, but he has no figures distinguishing families for whom occupation has had to be provided as a result of possession orders granted by the courts, and other families.

Mr. S. Silverman: Can my hon. Friend explain how it comes about that, since these orders can only be made if greater hardship on the landlord is established, orders have been made in cases where the family have no accommodation at all, other than a rest centre provided by the authority?

Mr. George Wallace: Would my hon. Friend look very carefully into this problem, because a very serious situation is developing, which is handicapping local authorities in the development of their housing programme? I would refer him to HANSARD of yesterday's date where he will see figures which will give him great anxiety.

Mr. Key: We are very much concerned about the number of cases that are having to be dealt with in rest centres. We are undertaking an investigation to find out the causes.

Mr. Silverman: Does not my right hon. Friend appreciate what is happening? How can there be greater hardship on a family than to have no home to go to? Ought there not to be some inquiry as to how this is working out?

Dispossessed Families (Furniture Storage)

Mr. Sparks: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware of the difficulty experienced by families in securing storage accommodation for their furniture, when compelled to enter rest centres and institutions as a result of court orders for possession made against them in the Metropolitan Police district; and if he will give powers to local authorities to make arrangements for the temporary storage of furniture belonging to such families until they are able to be rehoused.

Mr. Key: General allegations have been made, but my right hon. Friend has no direct evidence. If my hon. Friend has any evidence that he can give him, he will be happy to consider it.

Mr. Sparks: I do not quite understand that reply. I do not know whether it is really in reply to my Question, which refers to the granting of powers to local authorities temporarily to store furniture of families who have been dispossessed from their homes and who have to resort to rest centres. Will the Minister give the local authorities power to store the furniture of these, families until they can get rehoused?

Mr. Key: We know of no case, after investigation, in which people turned out as a result of a court order, have had difficulty in storing furniture as a result. As I have said, we have no direct evidence that there is a need for this, but if there is any evidence, we shall be glad to consider it in dealing with the problem.

Mr. G. Wallace: I submit that the reply my hon. Friend has given, which is obviously Departmental, is utter nonsense. I have evidence with which I can convince him that that is so. I would like to refer him to Sidcup Council where we are at our wits' end to obtain accommodation.

Mr. Gallacher: Is not the Minister aware that people are continually coming to hon. Members and drawing attention to the


fact that their furniture is going to waste where it is stored, and that it will be almost impossible for them to get new furniture when they get new houses?

Mr. Key: That is not dealing with the problem with which we are asked to deal here. We are asked to deal with the problem of families dispossessed, and for whom furniture storage accommodation cannot be found, and we have been unable to find any such case in the London area.

Mr. Sparks: Is my hon. Friend aware that his regional officers have declined to allow some local authorities to undertake the temporary storage of furniture of families made homeless by court orders?

Mr. Key: The truth is that the local authorities have no power to store furniture in the ordinary way.

Mr. S. Silverman: Is not the important question how such a family comes, under existing legislation, to be dispossessed at all? Will not the hon. Gentleman make an inquiry to see how the legislation is being worked, when it results in families being dispossessed of their homes and having to put their furniture in store and go to rest centres?

Mr. Key: I repeat that we have not had particulars of such a case.

Mr. Lipson: What is the objection to giving the local authorities such power?

Repairs (Priority Certificates)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that his circular 100/46, dated 13th May, which prohibits the issue of priority certificates for materials for the repair and maintenance of houses, is making it impossible for householders to comply with statutory notices to remedy defective sanitation; that in consequence some local authorities are proposing to discontinue the issue of such notices, which could not be enforced; and whether, in the interests of health, he will arrange for priority in supply to be given when the local authority gives a certificate of urgency.

Mr. Key: No, Sir. As my right hon. Friend explained in answer to a number of hon. Members on 9th May, builders merchants have been instructed to meet demands for materials and components required for specially urgent work, or for

repairs and other work required by statutory notice; and, as he further explained in answer to subsequent Questions on 23rd May, arrangements have been made whereby merchants who supply materials in good faith for urgent repair work can obtain priority for the necessary replacements. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the instructions, and if he knows of cases which have arisen since the issue of these instructions, in which householders have been unable to obtain materials required to comply with statutory notices, I should be glad if he would let me have particulars.

Mr. Keeling: Has not the Minister seen representations which have been sent to him from the Town Clerk of Twickenham and the Town Clerk of Westminster․ both very important places? Is he aware that whatever the instructions were that were issued some weeks ago, the machinery for obtaining supplies for replacing such things as broken lavatory pans and broken waste pipes has, in fact, broken down?

Mr. Key: Our information is quite contrary to that; that since the issue of the instructions to which I have referred, things have gone quite well.

Mr. Assheton: Would the hon. Member be so good as to look into the matter, because it is the experience of a large number of hon. Members that it is not at all satisfactory at present?

Mr. Key: I should question that. In the first issue of the W.B.A. priority arrangements, there were misunderstandings. But since the issue of the instructions of which I have spoken, things have been put on a right basis, and are working satisfactorily. But, as I have said, if there are any instances brought to my notice which can be investigated, they will be investigated.

Mrs. Castle: Is the Minister aware that recently plumbers have made official representations to his Department that that they cannot get the necessary materials for local sanitary repairs, and, therefore, it looks as though his intentions have not percolated to the merchants who are wanting to use these materials?

Mr. Key: I think the complaints to which hon. Members are referring were those which originated before the issue of


the subsequent instructions to which I have referred, but I can only repeat that, if specific instances are given to us, we will make every inquiry and see that they are dealt with.

Mr. Assheton: Is the hon. Gentleman referring to repairs which are necessary as a result of a statutory instruction or which become necessary although there is no statutory order, but which are just as important in many cases?

Mr. Key: In my reply I stated that these were things arising either from the issue of statutory notices, necessities for sanitary repairs or the necessities to prevent danger to the structure. Those three categories were covered by the answer I gave.

Mr. Assheton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware there are other things, for example, a lock which was broken by a burglar, and for which it is impossible to get a replacement? There is no sanitary difficulty arising there.

Mr. Yates: Is my hon. Friend aware that a serious situation is arising in Birmingham on this particular point; that there is a considerable number of houses which cannot be put into a proper state of repair because several builders now say that they are not able to obtain the necessary materials in order to carry out statutory obligations?

Mr. Bossom: Is not the Minister aware that this House was asked to vote £100 million so as to make ordnance factories capable of making these special parts, and are we to understand that the ordnance factory proposals of his Ministry have failed dismally?

Maycrete System

Mr. Bossom: asked the Minister of Health whether his Department has given approval to the use of Maycrete, with its special form of construction, in the housing drive.

Mr. Key: No, Sir. The system is however being investigated further.

Mr. Bossom: Could the Minister look into this with considerable care? The matter has been greatly revised since it was considered on the last occasion.

Mr. Key: Yes, Sir, we have asked the firm concerned for fuller details and we await their arrival.

Mrs. Jean Mann: Could I ask my hon. Friend to get into touch with the Secretary of State for Scotland before he comes to any decision in regard to Maycrete houses? Is he aware that this house has been the subject of a great many complaints from hon. Members on these benches; will he take every one of them out of Scotland and give them to England, and then give us some habitable houses instead?

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH

Infantile Mortality, Bath

Dr. Stephen Taylor: asked the Minister of Health why the infantile mortality rate of Bath rose from 28 in 1938 to 53 in 1944, while the national rate fell from 53 to 46 over the same period.

Mr. Key: Within such a small number of cases․74 infantile deaths in Bath in 1944․annual variations are not very significant. Between 1938 and 1944 the Bath rate exceeded the national rate only twice, and both rates were fluctuating.

Mr. I J. Pitman: Is the Minister aware that the latest figures are as low as 2 and that the figures before the war were 42 in the five years in which the figure of 28 is quoted, and 43 in the other five years?

Mr. Key: Those figures confirm the statement I have made.

E.M.S. Beds (Closing)

Dr. Segal: asked the Minister of Health how many beds in E.M.S. hospitals had been closed by 31st December last; how many will be closed down by 30th June and 30th December next; and how many beds in E.M.S. hospitals will still be available for use after that date.

Mr. Key: I think there may be some misunderstanding here. Most E.M.S. beds have been beds reserved in the country's ordinary hospitals, supplemented by additional accommodation. As E.M.S. reservations diminish, the beds are normally left available for ordinary use. Reservations were 47,344 on 31st December last, 35,000 at 31st May. I cannot forecast future figures, but they will go on diminishing.

Dr. Segal: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this decision is likely to cause a great shortage in hospital accommodation in the coming winter? Is it too late to urge on the authorities responsible the grave danger of closing down hospital beds?

Mr. Key: I can assure the hon. Member that we shall take every step to prevent the premature closing down of hospital beds, which are so much in demand. Our great difficulty in providing the hospital beds, is not so much the availability of beds, as the availability of staff to deal with them.

Queen Charlotte's Hospital (Out-Patients)

Mr. Frank Byers: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that at the Queen Charlotte's Hospital, Stamford Brook, all maternity out-patients are ordered to appear at 8.45 a.m.; that many of them are kept waiting in uncomfortable conditions for two to three hours; and what steps he will take to ensure that a system of appointments is instituted at this and other similar hospitals.

Mr. Key: As the hon. Member will appreciate, my hon. Friend has no jurisdiction in the voluntary hospitals at present, but he has drawn their attention to this Question.

Oral Answers to Questions — EX-SERVICEMEN (TRAINING FACILITIES)

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the shortage of training facilities for ex-Servicemen in agriculture, building, teaching and the professions, he will cause a general review to be made of this problem.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): Training facilities in agriculture, building and teaching have been or are being considerably expanded. Progress is kept under constant review in the light of future requirements. While the provision of training for the professions is primarily a matter for the professions themselves, the Government recognise the importance of training facilities being available to the maximum absorptive capacity of the various professions.

Mr. Lindsay: Would the right hon. Gentleman reconsider this matter, in view of the list which I have taken from recent

copies of HANSARD of the numbers who are waiting? Could he treat it equally as a matter of urgency as were radar technical colleges during the war? There is a six year congestion of people waiting for these various colleges.

The Prime Minister: I quite realise the difficulty, but the hon. Member knows as well as anybody that before training facilities can be provided there have to be premises, teachers and the rest. The matter is being pressed forward.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a considerable number of men have only their Service experience to equip them for their future careers, and will he do something to enlarge the training facilities which are at present available for them?

The Prime Minister: Perhaps my hon. Friend would put that Question down to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour.

Mr. Collins: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the large number of men who went straight from school into the Forces and who have been unable to find suitable employment since demobilisation, he will consider expanding the scope of the facilities available for training in the professions.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): The number of young men who enlisted straight from school and who cannot find suitable employment is not large, but I am aware that it may tend to increase as demobilisation of the younger age groups proceeds. As regards the expansion of training facilities on the professions, I would refer him to the answer given today by the Prime Minister to the hon. Member for the English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay).

Mr. Collins: Is my right hon. Friend aware that one of the many difficulties is that these young men went into uniform before they had obtained the essential basic educational qualifications, and if some attempt is made to get over that difficulty and to expand the training facilities in the professions, suitable employment will be found for a large number of them?

Mr. Isaacs: I think my hon. Friend will find that that point has been covered in the answer given by the Prime Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED KINGDOM WAR CASUALTIES

Mr. J. P. L. Thomas: asked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to lay before the House a White Paper giving figures showing the strengths and casualties of the Armed Forces and auxiliary services of the United Kingdom during the war.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. A White Paper is available in the Vote Office this afternoon.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEMOBILISATION (OPHTHALMIC LENS WORKERS)

Major Symonds: asked the Minister of Labour how many more ophthalmic lens workers have been offered Class B release since 7th May; and what is the total number of releases so far completed.

Mr. Isaacs: Since 7th May the number of ophthalmic lens workers for whom offers of release in Class B have been authorised has increased from 74 to 80 and a further 40 names have been forwarded to the Service Departments within the past week. The number reported as released in Class B by 31st May was 27.

Major Symonds: In view of the urgent need for the production of lenses, can my right hon. Friend say whether all men of this kind known to be in the Forces have had the offer of Class B release, or has the offer been restricted to certain groups?

Mr. Isaacs: No, it has not been restricted at all. We rely on the firms engaged in this type of work to give us the names of the men. We have been given 120 names, and we are anxious to get another 30 as a minimum.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL SERVICE (STATISTICS)

Mr. Keenan: asked the Minister of Labour how many young men. 18 years of age, have been called up and joined the Services; and how many men of that age have been deferred or excused from serving between 1st October, 1945, and 24th May last.

Mr. Isaacs: It is estimated that the number of boys reaching 18 in the period

1st October, 1945, to 24th May, 1946, was about 220,000. Of these, about 146,000 have joined or were joining the Services either as volunteers or under the National Service Acts. Of the remaining 74,000, about 14,000 have been rejected on medical grounds and the great majority of the remainder are reserved or deferred by reason of their employment in the Merchant Navy, agriculture, building, coalmining or railway service or as apprentices or students.

Mr. Keenan: Do not these figures disclose that a large number of young men are escaping their obligations of national service because of their position in life, or because of the fact that their parents can provide for them? When national service is introduced as is suggested, will everybody be treated alike and will no one be called upon to give national service because of the inability of their parents to prevent it by giving them something else to do?

Mr. Isaacs: I think my hon. Friend's questions are based on a false assumption. If he will look at these figures he will see that they did not disclose that any of these 220,000 are dodging their responsibilities.

Mr. Keenan: I did not wish to say that they were dodging their responsibilities. I wished to ask my right hon. Friend if he realised that certain young men are allowed to have the opportunity of deferring their national service and others are not; and to ask whether, when national service is taken into consideration more fully, this preference will be avoided in future?

Mr. Isaacs: I ask my hon. Friend to look at the answer I have given him Those who are given deferment are those genuinely engaged in schemes of national importance.

Oral Answers to Questions — PROPERTIES (LOCAL AUTHORITY PURCHASES).

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that the present limit of prices to be paid by local authorities for the purchase of properties for their needs sometimes puts them to a disadvantage compared with private purchasers; and whether the permitted percentage of increase over 1939 valuations is likely to be increased.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): Generally speaking, local authorities have powers of compulsory acquisition of land which they require for statutory purposes, the price being fixed, in the absence of agreement, by the arbitrator. In view of this, I am not clear where the disadvantage to which my hon. Friend refers lies.

Mr. Sorensen: Has my right hon. Friend, in fact, had any representations made to him on this matter by the local authorities?

Mr. Dalton: I have no record of it with me. It would be convenient if my hon. Friend would send me any actual cases into which I could look.

Oral Answers to Questions — MATCHES (DESTRUCTION, LIVERPOOL)

Mr. Keenan: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the Customs and Excise Department had millions of matches destroyed in the incinerator of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board at Dukes Docks, Liverpool, on 30th and 31st May and 1st June last.

Mr. Dalton: I am told that these matches- were destroyed, not by the Customs but by the salvage authorities, because they had been so damaged by sea water as to be useless.

Mr. Keenan: Is the Chancellor aware that this is one of the boxes, which was given to me by one of the workmen, who were very much disturbed at the number destroyed? I am assured that over half of them were all right. Will my right hon. Friend make further investigations with a view to avoiding this kind of action in future? I will give him the box of matches if he will go into the matter.

Mr. Dalton: I intended to ask my hon. Friend to give me the box of matches. I am rather short.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Gold Reserves (Dollar Balances)

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total of gold reserves in dollar balances held by His Majesty's Government at 1st June,

1946, or, alternatively, as at the latest date for which information is available.

Mr. Dalton: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to my answer on 15th February last to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson).

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Yes, Sir, but the figures given in that answer referred to those shown in Cmd. 6707, published last December, quoting the situation nearly a year ago; and can there be any reason of security to preclude the publication now of those, at least, for December, or is the Chancellor afraid of giving an account of his stewardship?

Mr. Dalton: No, Sir; but I think we might wait a little longer.

Blocked Sterling Balances

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total of blocked sterling balances at 1st June, 1946, or, alternatively, as at the latest date for which information is available.

Mr. Dalton: Three thousand five hundred million pounds at 31st March, 1946.

Ex-Internees (Income Tax Concession)

Sir Arnold Gridley: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement concerning the Income Tax position of individuals working abroad who were interned by the enemy and came to this country to recuperate.

Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir. I have decided to authorise a further wartime concession under which an individual working abroad, who was interned by the enemy and came to this country to recuperate, will not be regarded as resident in this country for the current Income Tax year if he returns to his work abroad before 6th April, 1947.

Sir A. Gridley: I thank the Chancellor for the concession that he has made in accordance with his promise to look into this matter some months ago. May I ask him if he will consider how the widest publicity may be given to this concession, because a great many people will not hear this Question or answer or read about it?

Mr. Dalton: I will do my utmost to give publicity to this concession. I regard the


group of persons referred to by the hon. Gentleman as worthy of the most sympathetic treatment.

Loans (Local Authorities' Repayments)

Mr. Price-White: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why a premium is demanded from local authorities by the Public Works Loans Board for premature repayments of sums loaned to enable authorities to make advances under Section 59 of the Housing Act, 1925, when no such premium is de manded for repayments of advances made under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act.

Mr. Dalton: I understand that the hon. Member intended to refer to Section 89 of the Housing Act, 1925. Borrowers under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts have a statutory right to repay the local authority at any time. Borrowers under the Housing Acts have no such right, but if a borrower's mortgage allows him to repay, the normal premium payable by the local authority on repaying the Local Loans Fund is in fact reduced by 75 per cent., or, in cases of special hardship, waived altogether.

Mr. Price-White: Would the Chancellor of the Exchequer consider waiving all questions of premium in these matters and in similar cases in order to encourage thrift on the part of those who may in time repay the local authorities concerned?

Mr. Dalton: We are operating, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, under an Act of 1925. The general principle is that when loans are made by the Public Works Loans Board and when they are repaid before the due date, an amount sufficient to liquidate the liability incurred by the Local Loans Fund in respect of the advance should be paid. Otherwise, it is difficult to keep the accounts in balance. We do now waive this claim wherever hardship can be shown, and I think I can give an undertaking that hardship will be interpreted not ungenerously.

Oral Answers to Questions — PARLIAMENTARY MISSIONS (COST)

Mr. Price-White: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he will

give a list of the parliamentary missions, delegations and parties which have visited various countries abroad in the past year; and what has been the cost to the Treasury, respectively.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): This information is not readily available, but I will circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT as soon as possible

Mr. Price-White: I appreciate the nature of the reply. Does not the Financial Secretary agree that this money could be better spent at this time—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is asking for an opinion and not for information.

Mr. Bowles: Will my hon. Friend also indicate the Members of Parliament who have gone abroad during the sittings of Parliament?

Mr. Hall: I will look into it and see the extent to which we can give the utmost information on this matter. The Government have nothing to hide.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Unemployed Teachers

Mr. George Thomas: asked the Minister of Education what are the latest figures available of teachers registered with the Appointments Board as having been unemployed for a period of two months or longer; and what proportion comes from Wales.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Hardman): The National Union of Teachers Appointments Board informs me that on 28th May there were on the register no teachers who had been unemployed for two months or more, of whom 40 came from Wales. I am glad to say that by 3rd June the number had been reduced to 80, of whom 33 were from Wales. Some of the teachers cannot be immediately placed until vacancies arise in particular localities where they desire to serve for domestic or other reasons.

Mr. Thomas: Is the Minister aware that a considerable proportion of these teachers are lads who qualified before entering the Services but never took up an appointment, and now when they


come out they are finding exceptional difficulty? Will he take special steps to help that category?

Mr. Hardman: I am glad to be able to inform my hon. Friend that we are issuing a circular to local education authorities on the whole question of recruitment of teachers and we are discussing the whole problem with these bodies.

Mr. Hopkin Morris: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many graduates are included in the number he has given?

Mr. Hardman: No, I do not think I can break up these figures without notice.

Mr. Hopkin Morris: asked the Minister of Education how many qualified teachers are at present, unemployed in the county of Carmarthen.

Mr. Hardman: I understand from the Appointments Board for Teachers, which is conducted by the National Union of Teachers in conjunction with the Association of Education Committees, that on 3rd June there were four teachers on their books who were resident in the county of Carmarthen.

Mr. Lipson: Will the Minister circularise local authorities which have very large classes, to see if they can make use of these unemployed teachers wherever they are?

Mr. Hardman: I think I have already answered that point in reply to an earlier question.

Emergency Training Scheme (Rejected Candidates)

Mr. G. Thomas: asked the Minister of Education what are the difficulties preventing her Department from giving unsuccessful candidates the reason for their rejection by the interviewing boards held in conjunction with the emergency scheme for teachers.

Mr. Hardman: The interviewing boards are made up of members with wide and varied educational experience and their recommendations are based on a balanced assessment of the many factors which affect a candidate's suitability. In these circumstances it is not possible to give unsuccessful candidates any detailed reason for their rejection.

Mr. Thomas: Is the Minister aware that people with considerable experience are astonished at some of the fantastic decisions taken by the interveiwing boards, and could he make it possible for some second chance to be given?

Mr. Hardman: I can only say that I have myself personally investigated many of these decisions which have been in question and I confess that I have found that the boards who have dealt with these appointments have, in my opinion, done their work extremely well and taken into consideration all kinds of personal factors.

Mr. Yates: Is my hon. Friend aware that in the Circular which defines the obligation, the phrase appears, " As this decision is based on the results of a personal interview "? May I ask if the result is based only upon a personal interview, and also whether this Circular may be reworded so as to be a little more pleasant to those who receive it, and that the words " Your obedient servant " may be deleted, because they give neither obedience nor service?

Mr. Hopkin Morris: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in some cases some of these people who have been rejected by the interviewing board have been accepted subsequently?

Mr. Hardman: No. I was not aware of that but I should be very glad to have some facts to prove that statement.

Major Bruce: Can the Minister say whether copies of the proceedings are available for the Minister to see at a later date if he should so require?

Mr. Hardman: Yes. The Minister can see a detailed report which gives the details of the particular interview that has taken place. We have all the information that we require.

AIR SERVICES, NORTHERN IRELAND (ADVISORY COMMITTEE)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Professor SAVORY.

No. 105. To ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation whether he has any statement to make with regard to meeting the needs of Northern Ireland in respect of civil aviation.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (Mr. Ivor Thomas): My Noble Friend recently discussed with Sir Rowland Nugent, the Minister of Commerce, matters affecting civil aviation in Northern Ireland, in order to decide how her interests and needs in regard to air services could best be met. As a result of these discussions, and in agreement with Sir Rowland Nugent and the Chairman-designate of the future British European Airways Corporation, Sir Harold Hartley, it has been decided, when the Civil Aviation Bill becomes law, to establish a Northern Ireland Advisory Committee, which will be appointed under the terms of Clause 3 of the Bill. After consultation with the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Commerce for Northern Ireland, my Noble Friend also proposes, with the full agreement of Sir Harold Hartley, that the Chairman of the Advisory Committees for Scotland and Northern Ireland should be appointed to seats on the British European Airways Corporation. I take this opportunity of adding that it is my Noble Friend's intention that Northern Ireland shall be given air services and aerodromes in every way commensurate with the needs of her business community and of her travelling public. Her geographical position renders such services of vital importance to Northern Ireland, and, indeed, to ourselves.

Professor Savory: While expressing my deep gratitude to my hon. Friend, may I ask him to make it quite clear whether there is going to be representation of Ulster on the joint board of the company of Eire and Great Britain, on which Eire has a 60 per cent, control?

Mr. Thomas: I did not understand that the Question raised that point. I think that would be looking for trouble.

Mr. Edgar Granville: May I ask the hon. Gentleman, as he has referred to the Chairman of the Scottish Advisory Council, whether that means that he will consult the Secretary of State for Scotland on that appointment?

Mr. Thomas: That would naturally be the case.

Sir T. Moore: Can the Minister say if the advice to be tendered by these advisory councils will be acceptable?

Mr. Thomas: Full attention will be paid to it.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Oliver Stanley: May I ask the Leader of the House if he will state the Business for the week after the Whitsun Recess?

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The Business for the week after the Whitsun Recess will be as follows:
Tuesday, 18th June․Supply (11th Allotted Day); Committee. Debate on Food Production.
Wednesday, 19th June, and Thursday, 20th June․Committee stage of the Finance Bill.
Friday, 21st June․Second Reading of the Burma Legislature Bill [Lords]; Committee and remaining stages of the Railways (Valuation for Rating) Bill; Second Reading of the Superannuation Bill; and, if there is time, Second Reading of the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Bill [Lords].

Mr. Stanley: When the right hon. Gentleman says Committee stage of the Finance Bill on the Wednesday and Thursday, I hope he does not mean that it is intended to complete it on those days, but merely to make a preliminary approach to it?

Mr. Morrison: I should be very glad if we could complete it. I was even optimistic enough to believe it possible, but I fully realise that we must see how far we go, and go as far as we can.

Mr. Keeling: Can the Lord President give us an assurance that the printing of a new Order of Questions up to the first fortnight in August does not mean that the House will sit until then?

Mr. Morrison: No, it does not follow. We hope that the House will continue to make such excellent progress with its work that it may not be necessary to sit as long as that, but that does not prejudge the issue.

Mr. Rhys Davies: Is the right hon. Gentleman still considering the point I raised last week in regard to the request for a Debate on the White Paper about the call-up?

Mr. Morrison: I did suggest last week that, if it was to be debated, it would be convenient if it were done on a Supply day, because this is adminstrative action,


but I am bound to say that that is primarily a matter for the Opposition, and no doubt they, as well as the Government, will be influenced by how far there is a general feeling in the House for the matter to be debated. I am not sure about it.

Mr. Bowles: On the question raised by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies), in view of the well-known fact that the Conservative Party are much more keen on conscription than we are, why should it not be on a Supply day, which is in their province?

Mr. Morrison: I cannot give Supply days to the supporters of the Government, and I cannot readily give other days away. I am under the impression that there is no extensive alarm about the announcement which my right hon. Friend made as to the administrative action to be taken. After all, it is administrative action that he is taking within the existing law.

Mr. Stanley: If the right hon. Gentleman's supporters are so anxious to show that they are not keen on accepting the Government's proposals with regard to conscription, could not the Government provide them with an opportunity other than a Supply day?

Mr. Morrison: If the right hon. Gentleman will be so good as to leave my supporters and myself to argue it out between us, without his intervening, it would be better, but, if he wants to help the Government's supporters to criticise the Government, the course for him is open and clear. He could put it down for a Supply day.

Mr. Rhys Davies: The right hon. Gentleman must 'be aware that there is strong feeling about this issue of conscription. [HON. MEMBERS:" No."] I am addressing the Government, not hon. Members on the other side. Will the right hon. Gentleman really consider this serious matter of debating conscription again?

Mr. Morrison: I will never refuse to consider anything again, but I must say that, on my own estimate, I did not gather that the feeling was sufficiently widespread to warrant that course.

Sir T. Moore: Could the Lord President indicate when the Debate, such as was promised, will take place on the Air agreement with Eire?

Mr. Morrison: I am afraid I have no idea. This, again, is a matter about which I do not think there is widespread alarm and despondency. [HON. MEMBERS: " Oh."] No, not widespread, but this, of course, would also be a matter which could be debated on a Supply day

Mr. Dumpleton: Would the right hon.Gentleman bear in mind the desirability of an early Debate on Colonial affairs, as it is some time since we had one?

Mr. Morrison: That would be acceptable to the Government It is another subject for a Supply day

Mr. S. Silverman: Can the right hon. Gentleman hold out any hope that the Government will be making an early statement on, or, alternatively, offering art opportunity for the House to discuss, the Report of the Anglo-American Committee on Palestine, and, particularly, its recommendations for urgent action? Does he realise that it is now, or will be by the time we meet again, nearly two months since the Report was issued, and that 100,000 people are waiting very anxiously for the Government's view?

Mr. Morrison: I am not in a position to make any statement on policy. That would be for the Minister concerned. We still do not think it would be wise, and I think this is the general feeling of the House, that we should seek to Debate it until the discussions in which we are engaged have reached some more definite stage.

Mr. G. Wallace: Would the right hon. Gentleman indicate to the House whether he is prepared to consider the possibility of a Debate on the increase in railway fares?

Mr. Morrison: This is what Supply days are for. They really are. It is not for the Government to choose them. It is for their critics. It is eminently in order on a Supply day, and I do not see why the Government ought to be asked, and I do-not think they can concede it, to give up special days for this purpose.

Sir Ronald Ross: Does the right hon. Gentleman seriously suggest that the Opposition should sacrifice Supply days in order to assist squabbles between the Government Front Bench and their supporters? As regards the question of the Eire Agreement, is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is a matter of


great importance to all parts of the country which are affected by it, and that, therefore, we should be given an opportunity of discussing it?

Mr. Morrison: On the first point, it is not for me to decide the tactics of the Opposition. I am bound to say that, if I was in their place, and I thought there was a material possibility of a squabble or struggle between the Government and their supporters, I should put down a Motion for a Supply day quickly. But, coming to the other point, it is, again, administrative action taken by the Minister of Civil Aviation on the Air Agreement, and, therefore, it would be a proper matter to discuss on a Supply day, or on the Motion for the Adjournment on such a day as tomorrow, if there were time and Mr. Speaker were willing.

Mr. Michael Foot: On the question of the proposed Debate on Palestine, as the Arabs and Jews are to be consulted about the Anglo-American Committee's Report, does not the Leader of the House think it right that this House should be allowed to consider the matter before a final decision is taken?

Mr. Morrison: I had contemplated that, at some time, the House would wish to discuss the matter, and that that would not be an unreasonable request, but whether we should be at an advantage in discussing the matter before the Jews and Arabs discuss it, I am exceedingly doubtful.

Mr. S. Silverman: While everyone appreciates that it will be better to have a discussion in the House after the Government have made up their mind on what they are going to do about the unanimous recommendation of this Committee, does not my right hon. Friend realise that if it is going to take the Government a prolonged or indefinite time to make up their mind, that they must not expect the House to wait so long?

Mr. Morrison: I have not said anything about prolonging indefinitely; that is descriptive language imported into the discussion by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Stanley: The right hon. Gentleman will remember that we on this side of the House agreed with him that we should

much prefer to postpone this Debate until the Government were in a position to say what line they propose to take. But we have now postponed it for something like six weeks and we hope, therefore, that the Government will shortly be able to make an announcement and enable us to have a Debate for which many people are anxiously waiting.

Mr. Morrison: Both the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend have raised a-perfectly reasonable point, and there is no unwillingness on the part of the Government to meet it as soon as we can. But we must see how we go on. I would wish to meet the convenience of the House as soon as it is expedient and practicable to do so.

WAR DECORATIONS (NEW MEDALS)

The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): The House will be interested to learn that His Majesty has instituted two new medals for service in the war, a War Medal and an India Service Medal. The first is intended for the full-time armed Forces for non-operational as well as operational service. The second is for three years non-operational service by members of the Indian Forces. This latter award will not be given to anyone qualifying for the Defence Medal. The ribbons are now being woven and will be issued as soon as possible, the medals themselves cannot be ready for some time. I have placed specimens of the two new ribbons in the Library.
When the present qualifications for the Campaign Stars were drawn up the war still continued. The service which they were intended to commemorate had not been completed. It has now been possible to examine the whole matter in retrospect and some of the qualifications have been made less onerous. For instance, the time qualification for the France and Germany Star has been reduced to one day, as in the case of the Africa Star.
The King has also approved a recommendation that the bronze oak leaf emblem signifying a Mention in Despatches should be worn on the ribbon of the new war medal. The plastic oval badge given to those awarded a civil King's Commendation for brave conduct is to be replaced in due course, by a more


permanent emblem of silver laurel leaves. When this civil award has been granted for service in the war, the silver emblem will be worn on the ribbon of the Defence Medal, should the recipient have qualified for this latter distinction. In addition a small silver badge is to be instituted for those granted civil King's Commendations for valuable service in the air.
A White Paper dealing with all these matters is available in the Vote Office. It also contains in an appendix a summary of the conditions of award of the campaign stars as they will now stand.

Mr. Keeling: Would the Prime Minister consider an emblem for anti-aircraft service being placed on that new war medal in order to meet a very widely felt grievance that the anti-aircraft service has not been properly recognised?

The Prime Minister: We cannot properly debate that at the moment. Perhaps the lion. Member would look at the White Paper, and then I should be prepared to answer any supplementary questions on it.

Lieut. - Commander Joynson - Hicks: Can the Prime Minister say what progress is being made with designing the Defence Medal and when that medal may be expected; also, whether he has taken into consideration the question of the granting of clasps for war medals?

The Prime Minister: I should like to have that question put on the Paper.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[10th ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1946

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a further sum, not exceeding £40, be granted to His Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the following services relating to Scottish Agriculture, Transport Services to the Western Highlands and Islands and Education for the year ending on the 31st day of March 1947, namely: ․

£


Class VI., Vote 21, Department of Agriculture for Scotland
10


Class VI., Vote 22, Department of Agriculture for Scotland (Food Production Services)
10


Class I., Vote 25, Scottish Home Department
10


Class IV., Vote 13, Public Education, Scotland
10



£40"

․[Mr. Glenvil Hall.]

The Chairman (Major Milner): It may be for the convenience of the Committee and may facilitate Debate, if the first three subjects are discussed together, leaving the Vote in respect of public education to follow

AGRICULTURE AND TRANSPORT (SCOTLAND)

3.47 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Westwood): I am aware that from time to time in the past, the suggestion has been made that the party to which I belong is not interested in agriculture. Actually, this is wholly untrue. We fully recognise the fundamental importance of this industry and consider, as I believe Members in all parts of the Committee would agree, that an efficient and prosperous agriculture is an essential part of the wellbeing of the State. That this is the Government's view is borne out, I submit, by the course of action which we have pursued since we came into office.
By announcement on 15th November, 1945, the Government indicated the principles of their long term policy for food and agriculture. The cardinal point in this is the adoption of a system of


assured markets and guaranteed prices for the principal products, milk, fat livestock, eggs, cereals, potatoes and sugar beet. By this system, not only are actual prices fixed well in advance of the periods to which they relate, but, in the case of livestock and livestock products, for which it is necessary that the farmer should plan well ahead, minimum prices will be fixed biennially. Farmers will thus know the prices for cereals, potatoes, and sugar beet well before the time comes for sowing those crops. For fat livestock, milk and eggs, they will know the minimum prices several years in advance and actual prices some three to 15 months ahead.
A feature of the procedure under this system is the annual prices review, which has, for convenience, been fixed in February of each year. At that time, the Agricultural Departments, with the fullest possible record of the economic position of the industry before them, will confer with the representatives of the industry with a view to reaching, if possible, agreed inferences from the data available and agreed conclusions as to the detailed adjustments of prices desirable. It will be clear to hon. Members that this procedure involves freely sharing the official sources of information with the farmers' representatives. That the farmers appreciate this frankness is indicated by the fact that on the occasion of the comprehensive review last February it was possible to reach agreed conclusions. I am aware that thoughtful farmers attach great importance to the system and the procedure which has been adopted, and realise that goodwill and a cooperative spirit, together with the adoption of a national rather than a sectional outlook, are essential to its full success.
There is another side to this policy. For one thing, with the State committed to a guaranteed market and price, it is clear that sooner or later it may be found necessary to set limits to the quantities of particular products to which the guarantee will apply. That does not arise now, in these days of general scarcity, and, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture indicated in the statement to which I have referred, due notice would be given of any such intention. What I want to mention now very briefly is the machinery which I propose to set up in Scotland to secure the highest possible degree of efficiency in the industry.

As hon. Members are aware, the agriculture executive committees have done splendid work during the war period. I have pleasure in taking this further opportunity of witnessing to their devoted labours. They have raised the standard of efficiency in their counties, and it is clear that if the gains are to be consolidated and increased, some organisation of broadly similar type will be desirable in the future. Accordingly, as I informed the House recently in reply to a question by the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) I intend in November next to set up new area executive committees to take the place of the existing agriculture executive committees. The new committees will each consist of about 14 members to be appointed by me after consultation with the representative organisations of landowners, farmers and agricultural workers. They will take over the whole of the executive functions arising under the Government's agricultural policy. So long as it is necessary to continue certain local services, these will be carried out by sub-committees with local headquarters in the districts of the present agriculture executive committees.
When the cropping programme for 1946 was under review at the beginning of last year, it was hoped that a return to something like the tillage acreage of 1941 would be possible; that meant roughly equivalent to a drop of 10 per cent. from the peak cropping figures of 1943 and 1944. A restoration of the livestock output was envisaged from 1946 onwards, with a consequent reduction in the production of crops for human food. Later in the year, however, it became evident that it would not be possible to allow so much freedom of cropping as had been earlier expected, nor particularly in relation to potatoes and sugar beet. The final programme allowed a reduction of about 5 per cent. on the total area which had been under crop in 1945. With the continuing deterioration in the food situation early in 1946, we found it necessary to go out for the maximum acreage of wheat and other cereal crops, and Agriculture Executive Committees were asked to take whatever steps might be practicable to that end. Later, a further appeal was made to Committees and to farmers to secure the same cropping acreage as in 1945, and to repeat the 1945 potato acreage. As an incentive to farmers to plough up grass, it


was decided to extend the £2 per acre grassland subsidy to grassland three years old or over, ploughed after 5th February, 1946. Previously, as hon. Members are aware, the subsidy had been paid only in respect of grass which had been down for seven years or more. Concurrently with these arrangements, a call was made for the cropping in 1946 of all land on golf courses, recreation grounds and policy parks which had not yet been sown back to grass, even though permission to sow out might already have been given.
Despite the many difficulties which farmers were up against, including the un-certain weather in the winter and early spring․and that is something over which not even the best planning can take complete control, or any control․and the reshaping of a cropping programme determined many months beforehand, it is estimated that Scottish farmers will have under the plough in 1946 a tillage acreage of some 50,000 acres above the target originally set. This result is a very commendable one, and much credit is due to the agriculture executive committees and the farmers themselves who responded wholeheartedly to the various appeals made to them, although they had been looking forward to․and I think they had every reason to expect․some relaxation after their strenuous war years. The total tillage in Scotland in 1946 we estimate provisionally at 1,950,000 acres, including about 1,285,000 acres under wheat, oats and barley, 213,000 acres under potatoes and 12,000 acres under beet.

Mr. Snadden: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point, could he say what is the actual acreage of wheat for June?

Mr. Westwood: I will try to get those figures when the Under-Secretary is replying. These totals show some fall from the 1945 level. We shall be compelled, in view of the gravity of the international food situation, to call on farmers for even greater efforts in 1947.
As regards the important question of milk production, notwithstanding the difficult feeding stuffs position, and the loss of dairy farms required for housing sites, there is a continuing upward trend in milk production in Scotland. For the year ended last March, the increase in production compared with prewar was

5 per cent., and as much as 12 per cent. compared with the record low production in the year 1941–42. Winter production, about which we have been so much concerned, also shows a steady improvement, last winter's figures being 17 per cent. above those for the winter 1941–42, and 4½ per cent. above prewar winter production figures. Farmers know that, commendable as these results are, the call is for still further efforts to step up production, particularly during the winter, until supply meets demand. Pride of achievement under present conditions also extends to the quality of the milk supply in Scotland where milk of certified and T.T. grades represents about 53 per cent. of the total liquid supply. I am not yet satisfied with that, but it is some achievement, particularly under wartime conditions.
In the Debate on agricultural policy last February I referred to the new arrangements which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture was making, in association with me, to strengthen his headquarters veterinary staff in Edinburgh, so that I might be more advantageously placed to consider, in future, the veterinary aspects of policy in relation to all other aspects for which I am responsible, which are many. In pursuance of these arrangements, one of the Minister's deputy chief veterinary officers is now stationed in Edinburgh, and I have arranged to provide accommodation for him and his headquarters staff in St. Andrew's House alongside my own Department. If I am to secure the fullest advantage—

ROYAL ASSENT

4.1. p.m.

Whereupon, The YEOMAN USHER or THE BLACK ROD being come with a Message, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair.

Mr. SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went; and, having returned․

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:
1. Licensing Planning (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946.
2. Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act, 1946.


3. Ministerial Salaries Act, 1946.
4. British Museum Act, 1946.
5. Astley Ainslie Hospital Order Confirmation Act, 1946.
6. London Midland and Scottish Railway Order Confirmation Act, 1946.
7. Great Western Railway Act, 1946.

SUPPLY

Again considered in Committeee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair]

Question again proposed,
That a further sum, not exceeding £40, be granted to His Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the following services relating to Scottish Agriculture, Transport Services to the Western Highlands and Islands and Education for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, namely:

£


Class VI., Vote 21, Department of Agriculture for Scotland
10


Class VI., Vote 22, Department of Agriculture for Scotland (Food Production Services)
10


Class I., Vote 25, Scottish Home Department
10


Class IV., Vote 13, Public Education, Scotland
10



£40

AGRICULTURE AND TRANSPORT (SCOTLAND)

4.13 p.m.

Mr. Westwood: As I was saying before we were called to another place, in pursuance of this arrangement․I was dealing with the veterinary service․one of the Minister's deputy chief officers is now stationed in Edinburgh, and I have arranged to provide accommodation for him and his headquarters near me in St. Andrew's House alongside my own Department. I was pointing out that if I am to secure the fullest advantage from the new arrangements, I consider it essential that the Minister's staff, and my own, should work in close proximity to one another. I can assure the Committee that this meets with the cordial approval of my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Agriculture.
I should like to refer shortly to some other factors affecting agricultural production. Let me take the question of machinery. The use of machinery for agriculture increased enormously during

the war. We all realised the benefits of this advancing mechanisation, and it is unfortunate that, at this critical period, progress has been temporarily checked. Much of our agricultural machinery came from overseas, and with the cessation of Lend Lease and mutual aid arrangements imports had to be drastically reduced. Now, owing to labour difficulties in the United States, fulfilment of our reduced import programme has been affected, and machines on which we relied may not be delivered in time for this year's vital harvest. There is, also, difficulty at present in obtaining spare parts for American tractors and other farm machinery already on our farms. This shortage is due to abnormal world-wide demands, coupled with the present production difficulties of the American factories. Some time must elapse before production and supply of parts become normal again, and while much has been done to arrange for manufacture in this country of parts in considerable demand, it is not practicable to cover the whole range of spares involved. Meantime, the utmost use will have to be made of available facilities for repairing broken and worn parts. A Scottish machinery station is being established, where field testing of agricultural machinery will be carried out under the varying conditions of Scottish farming. All this is designed to lead towards the production of an increasing supply of first class agricultural machinery suited to British conditions and requirements While we must face up to some difficulties in the field of mechanisation for the present, these will, I feel sure, be only temporary. We can look forward with confidence to increased mechanisation improving the efficiency of our farming and providing our farm workers with better conditions.
I should like to say just a word or two in connection with fertilisers. To ensure the continuance of the high level of cultivation during 1947, it will be necessary to arrange for a distribution of fertilisers, probably, in greater quantity than has been possible during recent years. I think all Members of the Committee will agree with me. The supply of the raw materials required for the manufacture of fertilisers, especially potassic fertilisers, is still inadequate to meet the known world demand, and the allocation of such supplies as are available is made․I am sure it is within the knowledge of the Members of the Committee․by the Com-


bined Food Board. The Government have asked for an increase in the allocation of nitrogenous, phosphatic and potassic fertilisers as compared with the quantities which were made available to us during 1945 to 1946. Even, so, it is unlikely that the quantity of potash provided will warrant the removal of the restrictions on the use of potassic fertilisers, though there may be a better provision possible for use on potash deficient soil.
The world-wide shortage of grain, and the continued decline in our imports of all kinds of animal feeding stuffs, such as oil seed, beans, etcetera, necessitated a very severe reduction in the ration scales for pigs and poultry last May. A further ration cut for these and other classes of stock, which comes into operation in July, has resulted from the world shortages and from the reduction in our supplies of wheat offals following upon the increase in the extraction rate of flour. The rationing arrangements for all classes of stock during the coming winter have just been announced. The effect of these reductions in the issues of rationed feeding stuffs is difficult to estimate, and will depend, to a large degree, upon the extent to which home grown feeding stuffs on the farms will be available, and upon the use made of supplementary feeding stuffs, such as kitchen waste.

Mr. McKie: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a question? He has mentioned kitchen waste. Is it his intention to initiate any campaign in Scotland to get people to preserve kitchen waste as much as possible? I should like to point out, also, that one would have expected the Scottish Labour Party to be better represented here this afternoon during the right hon. Gentleman's interesting speech. I see only one Member of the Scottish Labour Party here.

Major Guy Lloyd: Surely, during this most interesting speech, there should be more than four Labour Members, to show their interest in this subject?

Mr. Westwood: I am not going to deal with that question at the moment. I myself might be accused of absence at a later stage when I shall have to attend to some other business, although I intend to come back and resume my place here. We do not know what duties hon. Members may

have outside the Chamber, and sometimes duties outside the Chamber are just as onerous as those in the Chamber.
The question of labour is fundamental. I refer to the post-emergency problem of building an adequate permanent labour force capable of carrying the burden of the agricultural production which we have in view, after the present supplementary forms of labour, such as prisoners of war and others, are removed. In the first place we must look for recruits from within the industry itself, the youths and girls who would normally fill the vacancies. I am conscious of the necessity for retaining these youths in the industry, and the Government have, as the Committee will be aware, given to agriculture the preferential treatment of not calling up the young men for service with the Forces. But it is doubtful whether this step, in itself, will be sufficient to build up an adequate regular labour force;. This is emphasised when we consider the low ebb to which the regular labour force had fallen in 1939. Again, we anticipate that some men will leave the industry when labour controls are removed.
Recently we have announced a scheme for the formation of a resettlement force from men in Polish units,, and we hope that a proportion of these men may pass into the body of regular agricultural workers. The Government desire to attract British workers to the industry, and would welcome a movement of men and women from the cities for this purpose. What are the impediments to such a movement? The main one, I think, is the altogether erroneous conception that agricultural employment is something of a back-water, and a dull back-water at that. That may have been an apt description at one time, but it is not so today. Today the industry is calling for higher degrees of skill than ever before from its workers․it is a skilled industry․ by the progressive stages of mechanisation, and from the higher standard of technical knowledge required in the handling of stock. The term farm labourer, at one time in common use,.is really a thing of the past, and the more we can emphasise that fact, the more will we be doing justice to the industry and opening the door to a flow of workers from urban areas, which will be to the good of the country as a whole. The attraction of workers to the industry is


more than a question of money wages, important as these are. It raises the whole question of the amenities of life in the countryside, better housing, piped water supplies to dwelling houses, electricity supplies and so on. These are not matters which I can enlarge on today, as they go far beyond the Estimates before us. I do, however, wish to make the point that when we are considering the general well-being of agriculture, and the attraction of the labour force necessary to maintain it, these wider questions must be in our minds Their importance is certainly recognised by the Government.
I will now say a word about prisoner-of-war labour. At the end of 1945, there were over 19,000 prisoners of war available for agricultural work in Scotland. Of these, over 10,000 were Italians, and 9,000 Germans. Having regard to the expected reduction in the Women's Land Army and in other sources of labour hitherto available, I estimated that to meet labour requirements in 1946, a total prisoner of war force of approximately 40,000 would be required. Application was therefore made for allocations, out of the 1946 intake of German prisoners of war, of approximately 30,000 prisoners․ 10,000 to replace the Italians, and 20,000 additional prisoners. Actually, having regard to the number of prisoners expected to arrive in Britain this year, it has not been possible to meet this demand in full, but a provisional target of 26,000 has been fixed. Assuming deliveries to be made as expected, there will therefore be a German labour force of 35,000 available for agriculture in Scotland this year. So far the number available is over 20,000. Accommodation has been secured for a further 8,000, and arrangements for the provision of accommodation for the balance of 7,000 are being pushed forward with all speed. It may now be confidently expected that over 31,000 German prisoners will be at the disposal of farmers by the grain harvest, and the balance of 4,000 by the potato harvest. Of course, while the services of these prisoners will be invaluable in securing the harvests, they will also be required and made use of throughout the year. In addition to the prisoners of war, the supplementary labour force will comprise men from the Polish forces, civilians, including men and women from the employment exchanges.

and, for the potato harvest, school children.
We are all aware of the importance of research, and of the great need to extend. research work into the problems of agriculture. The Agricultural Research Council, in conjunction with the Technical Committee of the Scottish Agricultural Advisory Council and the Agricultural Improvement Council for England and Wales, are just concluding a comprehensive review of the whole field of agricultural research, and considerable developments, involving a large expansion of staff and resources, are being considered. Indeed, in many directions schemes of development have already been approved, and only the shortage of trained staff and temporary difficulties in obtaining buildings and equipment are limiting the progress that can now be made. At the moment I have under consideration the recommendations of the Committee, presided over by Lord Alness, which recently reported on the future development of agricultural education, and I shall shortly be having discussions on these recommendations with the universities and the three colleges of agriculture. While I am content with a division of interest between three universities and three colleges, I am anxious to secure coordination in advisory and extension work of such a kind that the service will, in real effect, be a national service even though it continues to be based on existing institutions.
I will now say a word about public works in the Highlands. Under the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act, 1897, powers were given, among other things, to aid the provision or improvement of piers, boatslips, public roads and bridges, footpaths and footbridges and, subject to the consent of the Treasury, harbours. During the war it was necessary for the Secretary of State to limit expenditure on matters of this kind to projects which were needed for war purposes, or which were vitally necessary for the maintenance of communications. Now that the war is over, it is possible to take a less rigid and more constructive view. In the past, the biggest sum ever voted in one year for the purpose of this scheme was £30,000. For the current financial year a provision of £60,000 is included in the Estimates. This increase is necessary to take account of the new level of costs. On the basis of this provision, I have


asked Highland county councils to submit details of the schemes they wish to undertake, and to let me know the order of priority in which they place their various schemes. Proposals are now coming in, and, on the basis of the information provided, decisions will shortly be taken as to the schemes which can be put in hand this year. The information provided will also assist me to determine the financial provision which should be made in the years.ahead. The question of communication facilities is of the very first importance to the life of the scattered Highland and Islands communities, whether it. be the pier or boatslip on which a whole island or district depends, or the township road which is the sole contact between a crofting community and the outer world. I am well aware of the many deficiencies which exist, and of the claims which can be advanced very legitimately and with every right to sympathy. I can only say, with the aid of the advice of the county councils, I will endeavour to see that priority is given to the most urgent projects, taking account, as I must, of the situation, with which hon. Members are familiar, as regards labour and materials.
In regard to communications in the Highlands and Islands, the Committee will, no doubt, wish to know what is the position of the two subsidised steamer services run by Messrs. MacBrayne and MacCallum Orme. During the war, eight of MacBrayne's fleet have been on war service, and five of these are no longer available. The company were also handicapped by the closing of the Sound of Sleat, which cut off direct communications between Stornoway and Mallaig, and involved alterations in the steamer services in the Sound and to the Outer Hebrides. Special traffic, connected with the war, also placed a heavy burden on the services, and, in December, 1941, with a view to their more efficient operation, the Ministry of War Transport requisitioned the remaining vessels of both MacBrayne and MacCallum Orme, and the whole of the services were, thereafter, run as a single undertaking. Generally, it was found possible to maintain, with minor modifications, the passenger and mail services and cargo services operated by the companies before the war, except the Portree service, which had to be abandoned when the Loch

Nevis was requisitioned, but has now been restored.
The vessels of the two companies were de-requisitioned on the 2nd March; and the prewar services have, I think it would be true to say, been substantially resumed. However, although it has been possible to do this, MacBrayne are still short of boats, and relief of vessels requiring overhaul presents considerable difficulty. The company are laying down a new vessel for the Stornoway service, which will release the existing vessel on that service for use elsewhere, but it will inevitably be some time before she can be commissioned. During the period of requisition, the freights and fare charges on the services generally were retained at a level only 10 per cent. above those-in operation before the war, and now that the vessels have been derequisitioned, it is necessary to consider how the greatly increased expenses of running the services are to be met. Before the war, MacBrayne received from the Government an annual payment of £60,000, and MacCallum Orme, a payment of £4,000. These figures included payment by the Post Office for the carriage of mails of £26,000 and £500 respectively. The extent to which the loss on the services should be met by an increase in fares and freight charges, and an increase in subsidy is, at present, under consideration by the Government, and it is hoped that an early decision may be reached. Such decision will require to be embodied in a new contract between the Government and the companies. In the meantime, it is obviously necessary that the services should be kept in operation, and, consequently, advances are being made, as necessary, to the companies to meet their current requirements in anticipation of the conclusion of a new contract.

Major McCallum: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the House of Commons will be given an opportunity of debating the subject before the contracts with Messrs. MacBrayne and MacCallum Orme are renewed?

Mr. Westwood: I cannot say that off hand. I am not the Leader of the House and am not responsible for determining the time to be given for Debates, but I have no objection to any action which I take being debated, if there is time. Hon. Members may have points that they wish


to raise in connection with the steamer services, and these will receive sympathetic consideration. I would, however, ask them to bear in mind the difficulties․and I know that those hon. Members who represent the Highlands and Islands recognise them particularly․under which the companies are at present labouring, as the result of the war.
Time is short, and I have not attempted to cover all the ground as I know that there are many hon. Members who wish to take part in the Debate. There is room for many speeches in the realm of Scottish agriculture. I would add this, my first word as Secretary of State in dealing With this particular problem—although it is not the first time that I have replied to Debates on agricultural subjects․that the world food situation as we find it today brings out clearly one thing. In the matter of winning food from the land, we do not work for ourselves alone

Mr. Stephen: I was trying to follow the figures which the right hon. Gentleman gave with regard to prisoners of war. He also talked about children being employed in connection with the harvests. Can he give us any idea of the number of school children he is hoping to use in this way? Is he also aware that there is a big body of educational opinion against the use of children for this purpose?

Mr. Westwood: That point, no doubt, will be raised during the Debate, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that it will be dealt with by the Joint Under-Secretary when he replies.
The threat of famine in large areas of the globe brings it home to us that the national interest and the general human interest are not, in the long run two, but one. I am not sure how far the conclusions of international conferences, right though we may know them to be, would have carried conviction, if we had not had the experience which we are now living through. As it is, it stands out clearly, as one of our first national and international duties to produce from our fertile acres all the good food that we can. The formation of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the first of the organisations of the United Nations to take shape, expresses the approval of Governments to the idea of ever-increasing

world production, and a new level of nutrition for all men. It is a most interesting development that the producers of many nations have, within the last few days, at their London Conference, banded themselves together in a parallel organisation. With these organs of international thought and discussion in being, we must surely have put behind us, for all time, the parochial view of agriculture which has been its bugbear in the past.

4.40 p.m.

Mr. Snadden: I think everyone will agree that the right hon. Gentleman has given the Committee a well-considered and comprehensive survey of Scottish agricultural affairs. He also spoke on the Scottish transport services, but I can leave that subject to be dealt with by others of my hon. Friends. I should like to digress for a moment to pay my tribute to the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, Mr. Thomas Johnston. He took a keen interest in Scottish agriculture when he was in this House, and I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman and the Joint Under-Secretaries are resolved to follow in the footsteps of one who, I think, earned not only the respect and confidence of the Members of this House but of the agricultural community throughout the country. Mr. Johnston laboured here for the good of agriculture at a critical period, and I, personally, wish to pay my tribute to him for the work he did in cooperation with the right hon. Gentleman. That job may be over, but I think it is true to say that the good work which they then did still lives on. I think in that work Mr. Johnston enjoyed the able, wholehearted cooperation of the farmers and farm workers in Scotland. He would be the first to acknowledge it, and I think the farmers also would acknowledge the help they received from him and also the valuable help they received from the city workers volunteers and others who came out into the country to help us in the vital business of garnering the nation's food. Looking back over the war years, I think we had a good administration at the top, supported by the genuine effort of alt concerned right down to the land itself. It is a story of cooperation in which our country played a not unworthy part.
Whereas many other industries are now turning from war to peace, agriculture has had to go back into khaki. There is to


be no let-up for the food producer. The Lord President of the Council told us from the Government Front Bench not long ago, that if we do not get on top of famine, famine will get on top of us. We are facing a world shortage of food the like of which has not been known for a century. The immediate problem seems to be to do what we can in these islands to alleviate the conditions with which we are confronted and so assist not only our own sustenance but the national morale as well. The intensive cropping of the war years must be continued and even stepped up as against 1946. The continuous cropping of corn crops and heavy extractive potato-growing, must be carried forward to the debit side of our national agricultural account. Now, after six years of strenuous and prolonged effort there is no doubt which of our land is showing definite signs of wear. In some areas it is not particularly apparent, because of the good seasons we have enjoyed, but on the whole, in my own experience, I consider that soil fertility has been materially lowered. Much of the poorer land and the lands which have been well cultivated are now in a semi-exhausted state. Many of our fields are very barren, partly because of the shortage of labour, and also because of the severe handling to which they have been subject for six years of war.
The problem of soil fertility was always important, but now in view of what the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Boyd Orr) has said to the effect that the food shortage may continue for several years, perhaps beyond 1950, the question deserves the closest possible attention of the Government and their expert advisers. Exhausted land cannot be restored without a very much heavier application of limes and phosphates because, as we all know, farmyard manure is in very short supply. A survey made by the Agricultural Department in 1943 seemed to indicate that no less than 1,500,000 acres badly need fertilisers. How much more is needed today? Probably our lime requirements are not much less than 4,000,000 tons. The right hon. Gentleman gave some indication of the urgency of this problem. I wish to emphasise in the strongest possible manner that it is absolutely vital, the country having come through the strain of war and being faced with the problem of increased production on top of that, that

the right hon. Gentleman should get down with his expert advisers, should go very thoroughly into this question of the maintenance of soil fertility. We want to know, for example, is lime to be in proper supply. I can imagine the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland who is in charge of housing․and who has just gone out․wanting a supply of lime for housing requirements.

An Hon. Member: He is still here.

Mr. McAllister: When the hon. Gentleman was referring to hon. Gentleman "who has just gone out " did he really mean the hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew (Major Guy Lloyd)?

Mr. Snadden: I saw the Joint Under-Secretary on the other side a minute ago, and then he disappeared. I thought he had gone out of the Chamber. I quite realise that this question of the lime application to our land is of the very greatest importance. We have a pool for lime requirements for housing purposes. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman or the hon. Gentleman, who will wind up for the Government, to elaborate a little bit on what the Secretary of State said in this connection. We want to know if supplies are to be adequate in order to step up the application both of lime and of phosphates to our land. We want to know if these manures are to be made available in the proper quantities to meet the present extreme circumstances. We also want to know whether any steps are being taken to give publicity to this important matter throughout the country. It is obvious that we cannot continue on full production much longer without doing harm, and, in view of the urgency to produce everything we can. the maintenance of soil fertility has become priority No. I. I hope myself that this will not be lost sight of by the. Scottish Department.
I see our tillage acreage has gone up from 1,480,000 acres in 1939 to 2,011,000 acres in 1945, but, according to what the right hon. Gentleman said there has been a fall during 1946. We expected that because of the normal transition from war to peace. Owing to the food crisis, of which we are all aware, it would seem to me to be inevitable that we shall have to step up our production in 1947 to at least the 1945 level, causing a very heavy drain upon our fertility resources. If we are to step up our wheat production, which


would seem essential in view of the world shortage of bread, it would seem to me that the Government must take immediate steps about encouraging the people in Scotland to grow wheat. There is room for a vast expansion of wheat production in our country. I understand our wheat acreage has fallen by over 80,000 acres; I think the figure is 87,000 acres since 1943. That is equal to a production of about 75 tons of wheat.
If we are to get increased production of wheat in Scotland it is necessary to go back, I think, to the previous acreage payment of £4 per acre instead of the present payment of £2 per acre. I am told that is. 9d. per cwt. has been added to the price, but I do not think that will meet the case because our yield per acre is less than it is in this part of the country, and is. 9d. will not bring in wheat in sufficient quantities.
I am also concerned about potatoes. Our potato acreage will, no doubt, have to be stepped up beyond the 1945 figure. I understand that there will be a total acreage of 225,000. The Secretary of State said that success will, in the main, depend upon the available labour supply. He talked about policy for 1946. I am interested, not only in 1946, but, much more, in 1947. I want to know what the policy for that year will be in this respect. After all, executive agricultural committees cannot be expected to serve directions unless an adequate labour supply is guaranteed. Will the Government guarantee that supply of labour? The hon. Member for the Scottish Universities said in London, I think last week, that 1947 should see the greatest harvest in the history of the world. I think it is vital that we should concentrate on our labour supply during that year. We now have German prisoners of war and Polish troops working on the land, but everyone realises that we cannot hold these German prisoners for ever. We cannot tell when they will go, but when they do go, where will the labour come from to gather the enormous potato crop of approximately a quarter of a million acres? My hon. Friend below the Gangway mentioned school children. Personally, I would rather that school children were not required for this kind of work, but the alternative is that we shall starve in 1947 if we do not produce the labour to lift this enormous potato crop. My own county of

Perth is now the largest potato growing county in Scotland. It has ousted the county of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Forfar (Major Ramsay) from first place, and we are proud of that. This is an important question, and we want to know what the Government intend doing about it in 1947. It is only fair that our farmers should be told, because the expense of this crop is very great and the risks they run are almost unlimited.
I would like to refer to long-term labour policy. Do the Government in that policy․to which the Secretary of State referred today in words most of which we heard last time․intend to assume continuing responsibility for the future supply of labour? In my experience, mechanisation has produced a rather curious change in the style of working an ordinary agricultural holding.
In the old days, a farmer was able to work on his farm with little outside help. But the balance has changed. Things have speeded up; tillage has vastly increased; one operation tumbles on top of another, and few farmers are now able to get on with their work without considerable help from outside. Is this problem of the continuing responsibility of the Government in regard to the pool of labour to be left to solve itself, or has the Minister a long-term plan, more detailed than what he gave us today, to meet the case? If he has a plan we should like very much to be told about it.
Before I leave the question of cultivation, I would like to say a word or two about another matter which is of vital importance to the maintenance of a high tillage acreage. I refer to the general condition of agricultural machinery, which is essential if we are to grow the crops we must try to grow in 1947 Just as the land has been overworked in our war effort, so also have our tractors and machines. Today, we need more tractors, we need replacements for those which we have worn out, and we need more spare parts to keep in running order the machines we have working at present. I was a little taken aback when I heard the Secretary of State tell us of his difficulties, in this matter This is important, because you cannot produce food without this machinery, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman to do his utmost to see that adequate machinery and spare parts become available because of the intense


efforts made by our machinery during the war. With regard to the livestock position, owing to the tragic cut in our rations through the raising of the extraction rate of wheat to 90 per cent., and other causes which I will not go into at the moment, the situation will be felt very severely in Scotland. It will be felt most severely, in my opinion, by the small producer-retailer of milk, because he has not a big arable area on which he can keep his cows going. He cannot grow sufficient fodder without getting rations from outside. The cut will hit him, and it will hit our country very hard, because we are a livestock country.
Although we are livestock country, and although all we could do during the war was to maintain our livestock population, it is rather interesting to look at the effect of the cuts in imported foodstuffs which we have had to suffer during the war. We could not expect anything other than a fall in the numbers of sheep, pigs, and poultry. My fear always was that a devastating fall would also take place in other spheres of livestock, but we can congratulate ourselves that our cattle, both dairy and beef, have stood up to it very well. Scotland, in addition to contributing to the nation's food supply, is, after all, the great reservoir from which other countries replenish their supplies. Our reputation today is enormously high, and we should leave nothing undone to strive after even greater efficiency, and even higher quality. My hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) represents an area which has built up a reputation on the supreme quality of its cattle. We have for long, in Scotland, produced the world's best beef. Now, we lead Great Britain in respect of milk from tuberculin tested cattle. Thanks to the great work of Ayrshire breeders, South-West Scotland is ahead of any other area in Great Britain in the cleaning up of herds. In the main Scottish Milk Marketing Board area, more than half of our milk is tuberculin tested, and of our dairy cattle 22.3 per cent. have actually been attested. The time is obviously ripe for a final assault on bovine tuberculosis in Scotland. Our objective should be a tuberculin tested country, with milk and beef alike free from tubercle. We should have a national plan, and, since Scotland is already leading the attack, let us have, at all costs, an all-Scottish plan. The

prize would be of enormous value to us, but up to date there is no clear indication of Government policy in this respect.
A progressive policy, proceeding area by area, in Scotland․and we are all ready to adopt it․should be announced as soon as possible. When circumstances permit․if it cannot be done at once, perhaps it could be two or three years hence ․the reactors from those areas should be wiped out and adequate compensation paid. Farmers other than dairy farmers should be allowed to come into these attested schemes. Before the war, the Government made a payment per head for all the attested animals; I think it was £1, but I have not been able to check that figure. Now, no payment is made in respect of those cattle. There is no inducement to the beef producer to free his cattle from infection, and become an attested producer, and there is therefore hardship on the dairy farmer, who, in order to protect his licence, must double fence his farm, look after his water supply, and in a number of ways protect himself and his licence against his non-attested neighbour. So I urge the right hon. Gentleman to bring all cattle into the attested scheme. On this very important point farmers want to know what policy is to be pursued. They are ready to cooperate, but the expense of double fencing and so on is great, and they cannot be expected to go ahead unless it is made worth their while to do so. Now is the time for an all-out drive against bovine tuberculosis in Scotland, so that the whole country may give a lead in becoming clean and free.
The right hon. Gentleman may say that the Department of Agriculture is not responsible for animal health and the running of the attested herds. That is true, but the answer is that it is a state of affairs which should be ended at once. In my view a change in this direction is long overdue. Scotland should control its own animal health. I am a " home ruler "In this matter. The present position does not make sense. The Department of Agriculture in Scotland, the one Department which should be responsible and which is qualified to do the job, has nothing whatever to do with it. Whitehall is responsible for animal health; the Department of Health looks after milk grading and the approval of dairy premises, then the various local authorities


have different methods of carrying out the regulations, and they in turn send out armies of sanitary inspectors to urge on and ginger up the dairy farmers. The Department of Health for Scotland is the one Department really qualified to look after this business. The miserable dairy farmers pay so many pipers, and hear so many tunes, that they do not know which to dance to. It is a silly, untidy, unsatisfactory position, and the right hon. Gentleman should get down to it and clear it up.
I would like to say a word on the committees to which the Secretary of State has made reference. I see that in the Estimates a large sum is required to finance the work of the agricultural committees. By and large, I believe that during the war these committees have performed a very valuable service to the community. Their activities in the exercise of their powers have, in my experience, varied somewhat from district to district. To the progressive farmers they have sometimes been rather a nuisance; to the middle farmers they have on the whole been very helpful, and to the bad farmers they have been a perfect horror. On the whole, they have done a good job of work, and in the interests of the industry and of the country it is right that they should continue. The Secretary of State told us something about his plans for the future, and I know that another opportunity will arise when we shall be able to debate in detail what powers he should exercise, but I should like to ask him to consider very carefully, in the preparation of his plan, the vital question of the right of appeal on dispossession.
Because these committees were composed․quite rightly․of first rate farmers and expert officials, I have always felt that there was danger of creating a false standard of efficiency. Perhaps false is not the proper word; I mean an unduly high standard. One is always inclined to say, "If I can do the job, so can all the others."It does not work out that way, because we do not all possess the same degree of skill, the same amount of capital, nor do we possess the same quality of land. During the war farmers accepted the rigid discipline imposed by the war, but, if I know them, they will not tolerate it in the peace. Hence it is imperative that, where a case of dispossession arises, there should be a. right of appeal to an impartial

tribunal such as the Scottish Land Court. It may be that that particular body would have to be strengthened in some way, I do not know but considering that only some 80 farmers were dispossessed in Scotland throughout the whole war, I should not imagine that this work would be too onerous for them in peacetime. I hope the Minister will bear this important point in mind when he is framing the necessary legislation.
My last point is this. Everybody knows that the greatest problem with which we are faced in the countryside is housing, as the Secretary of State has said. I know I must not talk about housing in this Debate, but there is one aspect of it which has a bearing upon cultivation to which I would like to draw the Government's attention. I refer to the procedure followed in regard to the allocation of agricultural land for housing purposes. I can see my hon. Friend looking at me with great interest, because I know that he is vitally concerned in this business. My experience up to date is that the development of the services for housing schemes constitutes a very heavy drain on agricultural land in Scotland. The agriculturist is as keen as anybody on housing, but development today is causing anxiety in the countryside. In my view it is going far beyond the erection of houses on prepared sites, and the result is that we are losing quite a lot of valuable agricultural land which we can ill spare, and which could have been used for this year's crop.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Buchanan): If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me․it is a very interesting point, but I suppose that to build houses you must provide the services. There must be drainage, sewerage, water. That frequently means cutting across other land. I wonder if the hon. Gentleman could give me any kind of suggestion as to how I could build houses without laying the services as well. If he could I should be grateful.

Mr. Snadden: I cannot solve that problem; it is one which the hon. Gentleman has to solve. What I mean is that there does not seem to be very efficient planning in this connection. Work is going on now on land where no houses will be started for a very long time and which could have been used for this year's crop. I am only suggesting that where


these plans are being carried out there should be efficient cooperation in regard to food production.
The other point I wish to make on this is that the agreement whereby the arrangements of local authorities are to be submitted to agricultural executive committees does not seem to be carried out as we had hoped. I have information․ and it is pretty good information․that the very first notice some of the secretaries of the agricultural committees get is from the farmers themselves when they hear or see the contractors entering upon their land. We want to know what procedure is followed. We would like to have this cleared up. What sort of cooperation is there between the Department of Agriculture on the one hand and the planning authority on the other? I would like the Secretary of State to tell us. Is the land utilisation branch of the Department of Agriculture consulted in this matter? Have the agricultural interests been consulted and taken into account?

Mr. Westwood: I can assure the hon. Member that there is the very closest cooperation between all the Departments. There could be no wise planning in connection with the placing of houses and with safeguarding the interests of agriculture unless there were the very closest cooperation. Fortunately, or otherwise, I am the Minister responsible for all these things, and it makes it easier in Scotland, even than in England itself, to have that cooperation.

Mr. Snadden: I could give the Minister instances from my own constituency in which the agricultural committee knew nothing of what was going on, until the farmer was told and the land was actually taken. Scotland has a very small arable area. We have only some 4,500,000 acres of arable land, out of a total area of some 19,000,000. We want our arable land to be of the highest possible quality and we can ill afford to lose any. It is our duty to protect it. I am asking the Secretary of State for Scotland to be literally the policeman for agriculture in Scotland.
Hon. Members who represent agricultural and rural constituencies on this side of the Committee welcome the opportunity of expressing their views in these matters. Scottish farmers realise that they face a period of fairly prolonged and sustained effort, and if they are taken

fully into the confidence of the Minister and are told the truth about what is expected of them, they will be able to plan more intelligently for the days that lie ahead. They want us to help them to maintain the fertility of the land I ask the Minister to give them the labour they require and the machinery to work the land. Let him give them a milk production target which will act as a goal to strike at, and give them an incentive to achieve it. With the cooperation of the Departments concerned I am sure that the agricultural community in Scotland will give to the country their best in peacetime, just as they did during the war.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: It would be an impertinence if I were to try to elaborate the speech of the hon. Member for West Perth (Mr. Snadden). I venture to compliment him upon an excellent and authoritative speech upon agriculture. Many of us on this side of the House have had the feeling for many years that the trouble with the Department of Agriculture in Scotland lay partly in the fact that it has had only a very small part of the attention of one Minister. In the Gilmour Report of 1937 appears a description of the functions of the Department of Agriculture and of the Secretary of State for Scotland, which helps to explain a good deal of the neglect of, or of the incapacity to cope adequately with, agricultural problems. That Report stated:
There are questions in which the Scottish Office and the Department of Agriculture have a common interest. These include questions relating to transport in the Highlands and Islands. … The Departments of Health and Agriculture are both concerned with milk and housing questions, and other matters relating to health generally. The Department has a community of interest with the Fishery Board in the matter of piers and harbours in the Highland Counties. Broadly speaking, he [the Secretary of State] exercises all the functions which in England and Wales are discharged by the Home Secretary, by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, by the Minister of Health and by the President of the Board of Education. He has in addition duties corresponding to those of the Minister of Labour and the Lord Chancellor.
The Report ended by saying:
The Secretary of State is peculiar in that he discharges an assortment of heterogeneous and disconnected functions within an area which is territorially delimited.
In the inadequacy of the attention which has been given to the Department of


Agriculture and Fisheries in Scotland lies a good deal of the cause of the neglect from which it has had to suffer, and because of which the people in agriculture and in fisheries have had to suffer, up to the present day.
It will not, therefore, surprise the Committee if I should get slightly mixed up between the transport and agriculture of the Highlands and of the Islands. Even if I were the Secretary of State himself I probably would not, in view of the description which I have just read, be able completely to disentangle them. I would like to ask Members of the Cabinet to come to that part of the country which I represent in the Western Isles. I recognise that it is necessary for all Highland Members to be, to a large extent, constituency Members in this House. It is a criticism of them which it is very easy to make, but it is a criticism which brings home to this House․or it should․the necessity for such Members to give practically their full time to what are distinctive and special areas, even in the sense of distressed areas.
Let a leading Cabinet Minister come along, if that is conceivable. Let him leave Glasgow at 10 o'clock at night, or preferably at 5 o'clock in the morning, on the Highland train, setting out for the wilds of Perthshire. He would go through Inverness town and through Inverness-shire itself. He would try for hours to get a cup of tea in the morning at Inverness station if he went on the 10 p.m. train. He would come up by Dingwall, through Ross and Cromarty to the coast. He would reach the Stornoway steamer at Kyle. But to reach the Harris steamer he would have to come up overnight to catch it at 6 o'clock in the morning. If hon. Members cared to go by road they would go through all those places which, to English Members and certain Lowland Members generally, are so romantic. They would see the beauties of the Perthshire Highlands and the unmatched majesty of the hills and lochs of Ross and Cromarty. On board the steamer they would see a brass plate, which ought to interest all members of the Cabinet, and especially the Minister of Agriculture. On this little brass plate are these words:
The deck forward from this mark X on both sides to the forward screen bulkhead, contains 801 square feet and is certified to accommodate 89 passengers, when not occu-

pied by cattle, animals, cargoes or other encumbrances.
The " other encumbrances " are not specifically mentioned but I wondered whether it might apply to the late famous cockroaches․[An HON. MEMBER: "Or to the Ministers."] The logic of the notice is that if there are sufficient cattle, animals and encumbrances to make the voyage profitable no human beings are permitted there at all. They are allowed only 800 odd square feet by this standard where these things nevertheless take priority. To a large extent that has expressed the attitude of the company to the people of the Western Islands and the North-West coast and their problems.
I want to say a few words about what I think can be done to deal with the problems there. To me this is not a new subject; if it bores hon. Members, it ought to bore me much more, because I have been saying these things for the last 10 or 11 years. I have seen Secretaries of State and Under-Secretaries of State, and their heel-followers and caddies sitting on the Front Bench and on the foothills of consolation below me to the Parliamentary Private Secretary's bench. I have prodded, persuaded and insulted them even to the loss of my own dignity, if not of theirs. I have seen the Collins, Browns, Elliots, Colvilles and Johnstons, and the rest, pass in this flashy and somewhat futile procession along the Front Bench and out into oblivion at Election time, or sometimes with more dignity shortly before Elections. What have the crofters of the Highlands, the fishermen and the people of our constituencies had as a result of this agelong, smug, official blarney from the Front Bench in past years? To my knowledge and experience they have had 10 years of increasing discomfort, depopulation, poverty, unemployment, bad housing, lack of water supplies, and lack of the means to make agriculture, fishing, or anything else a success in an area where it is already difficult enough, for climatic and other reasons, to live and make a living.
What are the things that prevent the making of a living or a success of agriculture and fishing? At the head of the list, I put the abominable transport facilities in the area, the exorbitant freight costs, and all the other things on the agricultural and domestic side, such as lack of water supplies, electrification, sanitation and domestic comforts of all


kinds for the womenfolk, and prospects for the children. What has been done in those 10 or 11 years in drainage, in pasture improvement, in afforestation, as ancillary things to agriculture itself? What has been done in transport improvement, in technical education and advance in connection with agriculture and ancillary activities? What has been done in electrification, in water and sewage schemes, in the provision of facilities for leisure, village halls, adult education, and so on, without which we cannot keep the young people in the Highlands and Islands any more than we can keep them lacking such advantages, in any other part of the country? The answer is, just about next to nothing. I feel that, as far as pleading, writing and interviewing Ministers are concerned, I have practically wasted 10 years, and I am sure that, quite apart from all questions of political feeling, hon. Members of the Conservative Party who represent constituencies in the Highlands and Islands must have the same feelings about the last 10 years.
Yet, in spite of all that, the Government say, as past Governments have said, that they have as their policy and intention to keep the Highlands and Islands fully populated and stocked with fine, virile men and women, and all that sort of blarney. What have they done? The answer is the sort of thing one gets in a Ministerial letter․nothing. We have had bland and meaningless Ministerial evasions. I am not a new boy․or should I say? a new honourable boy․in the House. I recognise nowadays when a Minister is telling me " No," even if he does it in the polite and hard way in a whole page of phrases instead of in one word. I know also when the county councils are saying "No" and not discharging their responsibilities․and they are very largely to blame as far as Ross-shire and Inverness-shire are concerned. These county councils have a large responsibility for making life liveable for the people in agriculture and fisheries in those areas; but they are slowly strangling the life out of the Outer Hebrides and the rest of the area for which they are responsible because of their niggardly " rates-consciousness."I make allowances for the fact that they are heavily de-rated areas.
I am not any longer exonerating the Government from taking the initiative in promoting active schemes for the better-

ment of these areas so as to make them places liveable-in for the people whom I represent. I do not know how long the Government are going to tolerate these cabals of benighted and knighted backwoodsmen who run the county councils of Ross and Cromarty and Inverness-shire retarding progress; but I do not want to see the pace of a Socialist Government set by the convenience of reactionary Tory and Liberal local authorities. I am not going to wait for roads to make agriculture possible in my area, and for other essential transport improvements, until a Tory or Liberal county council says, " We are prepared to put a ½d. on the rates and play our part and do our duty as the elected representatives of the people."I want to see the Government, as the central authority, take the initiative in these matters. If they can do it in regard to trunk roads, there is no reason, in principle or otherwise, why they cannot do it in regard to secondary roads and village roads as well. It is not along the great trunk roads that the people live, although those main and tourist roads in themselves are vitally important; it is along the village roads that the people live their live, practise their agriculture and bring up their families.
If the Ministers of the Cabinet conceivably had come on that journey to the delectable Highlands and Western Islands, across the waters of the Minch with me, one of the first things they would have been told in Stornoway or Uist or Barra would have been that, in the Isle of Lewis alone, there are today over 2,000 men unemployed. In all the Outer Hebrides there are about 2,500 unemployed, and that in my view is a conservative estimate based on the end of April. The position has been getting worse, and there are men who are still on their 56 days' demobilisation leave. Many things have served to depopulate the Highlands and Islands. The curious thing is that while they are expected to do their full share in looking after the nation in wartime, the nation and the Government have not faced their responsibility of looking after them as a national responsibility, in time of peace. That is a generalisation, which is proved by all the facts of depopulation and poverty, and the despair of many of the people of the Islands, numbers of whom stay there only because they are too old to go away and have no prospect of anything else-


where, or are too old to learn new skills and be employed elsewhere.
Let me illustrate the devastation of that area with one or two figures. In 150 years of war, there are two examples which show what has happened. In the Napoleonic campaign, one man out of 23 of Wellington's troops at Assaye was from the Isle of Lewis; and one in 20 at Maida. In the 1914-18 war, out of a population of 29,600, no fewer than 6,100-odd men were in the Services, and of those 1,100 did not come back, heir losses in this war were twice those, in proportion, of the rest of Great Britain, and this includes civilians who were killed in the bombing raids. These figures are checked by the Lewis Association. When a nation makes such a demand upon a small area in wartime to take its part in shouldering a national responsibility, it is the nation's duty in peacetime, and the' first duty of the Government that represents and governs the nation, to recognise the rights of that area and its people.
After unemployment, disenchantment and disillusionment comes depopulation. In the period from 1921–1931, the population of that one island alone, Lewis, declined by 11.2 per cent.․-not 11.2 per cent. of old, young and middle-aged together, but 11.2 per cent. of the most virile and healthy stock. Thousands of the reproductive people have gone from that area, leaving behind them older people, an aged population, with a declining birth rate, and marriageable population. The inevitable further result is that more and more people come on to public assistance in one way and another; and are further regarded then by an uninterested Government as being a bigger nuisance than they ever were before. The Government say they intend to keep the Islands fully populated. They say that, and then they offer the able-bodied people there jobs as furnace men in Kinlochleven or industrial work in Dumfermline and other places; and even suggest that they might go to work in the mines. If the fishermen and all the agricultural workers in this part of the country went into the mines or industrial work elsewhere I wonder who would do the fishing and the agriculture and who would feed the rest of the miners and others? Yet I have heard that mentioned on a fairly high level as a partial solution.
I want now to return to the question of the steamer service. That is a service which, more than any other, affects the Western Isles in. their economic life. I recognise that the masters and crews and staff in general have been splendid; and I have no criticism of them to offer. In my own locality I think they have given first class service and have been courteous and extremely efficient. I wonder if any hon. Member has ever travelled on this service as much as I have. I remember on one occasion arriving at Oban, and going on board one of these ships at 6 a.m. on Monday and starting off for Castle Bay in Barra that morning, in a vessel with pretty rotten engines and intestines generally, finally to reach Castle Bay on Wednesday at 8 o'clock. It took from 6 o'clock on Monday morning to 8 o'clock on Wednesday night because they could not risk forcing the pace with a vessel which had more repairs and new parts on board than it had of the original engines. The engineer kept her going. Days went by till one imagined the engine oil flavoured the tea; while the bread and bacon got staler; and so we edged slowly on. And the weather got worse as we went. When we finally arrived I had to turn back on the next steamer because my meetings had to be cancelled; and arrived back on Saturday, on the same type of steamer, on my way back South. The thing which concerns us most so far as the steamers themselves are concerned is the accommodation. I am not one of the fanatics for speed and I think even "an hour, lost is well lost if one has better accommodation as the result. Both arc desirable; but one does not feel the voyage nearly so much if one has a certain amount of comfort.
I should like to draw the attention of the Minister of Transport to one or two points before I finish. There is a Government director on the MacBraync Company board whose fee is paid by the company. He receives £400 a year and meets twice a year with the company, I understand. Whether he ever makes a report or not is extremely doubtful. I will not mention his name but his age is about 76; and his salary or fee works out at £200 an hour twice a year. Even Members of Parliament justify their salaries a little more than that. I suggest to the Minister that there should be at least two representatives, either from the local authorities, or two in-


dependent people who know the problem, the place, and the people, and who would look after the people who use that service and report upon the conditions of the crews, upon freight charges and such matters. They should also report on the catering and other provisions on board and ashore. For instance, at Kyle and Mallaig passengers go ashore on their way to and from the Isles, and they need a rest and a cup of tea or breakfast. I think that is little enough to ask the Minister to undertake to try to make arrangements of that kind and not to leave them in the hands of the rather elderly gentleman who collects £200 an hour twice a year and does, evidently, nothing effective about it.
Why is it necessary for the new Stornaway․I should say the foreshadowed and still very shadowy Stornaway steamer․ to take 18 months to complete? Why did MacBrayne's place that contract with Denny's Yard, already cluttered up with so many other orders? Why, since they were supposed to build the ship in 1939 did it take them until this year even to complete the arrangements for placing the order? The people of the Outer Hebrides will have to wait for another year before she is on the water. I want the Minister to answer that and tell me whether it is still possible for that contract to be switched over to a yard which will be able to undertake the work and complete it a little more quickly. I should like to know from the Minister what provisions, apart from the switching of the Stornaway steamer, are to be made for increasing the frequency of the services and their regularity in the islands of Barra and the Uists and Harris.
The Minister of Civil Aviation throughout the Committee on the Bill now under discussion, has said that the Government recognise that the Western Isles need special treatment; and that they are prepared to average out the cost over the rest of the country and the Western Isles; and to treat them, if need be, as a nonprofit bearing area. I do not think that any hon. Member will quarrel with my saying that if we intend to keep that area populated, then we should make life liveable for the people there by providing the essential basic services of transport in the islands as non-profit services; and good transport is essential to all economic progress today. MacBrayne's have the mail contract now, and a virtual monopoly; and are well subsidised, and I do not see

why the Minister should not go a little farther and try to make the service a really efficient one on a nationalised basis. Quite frankly, I have found one Minister after another․and here I am coming right up to the present time․rather passive in this matter, but some action is necessary now to improve that service. I am speaking of people who know their own conditions and I am one of them and I go for long periods and live with them. It is much more difficult for right hon. Gentlemen 700 miles away to appreciate the difficulty than it is for someone on the spot.
I am in full support of the advocacy of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Neven-Spence) in his-demand for better services there; and I believe they should have sweeping improvements in the services up there. I also agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Argyll (Major McCallum) that there should be an adequate service in his area. We are at one on this need, whether Tories or Socialists or anything else. We have all recognised from sheer persona] experience on the spot that the people will not stay there unless there is made available to them what is part of the essence and economic life blood of an island and coastal districts of Scotland, namely, good, adequate and regular transport.
On freights, I have just to underline once again my long advocacy of flat rates within that area; and I hope the Minister will give that, not only sympathetic, but practical consideration. In a longish statement today, the Secretary of State mentioned the intention of the Government to make available an additional £60,000 for roads in our area of the North-West. Sixty thousand pounds does not go a very long way. The viaduct between Ben-becula and South Uist alone cost us well over £40,000. We might be able to build another half viaduct with the other £20,000, but why do the Government not face the facts and base their finances on the need of the people, and not on an arbitrary decision of the Treasury, who say, " Here is £60,000; we do not want any arguments; and it will have to do for a year. Manage on it the best way you can." We then watch it flung piecemeal to several scrambling county councils. Unless, as a Socialist Government, we relate our financial policy and the provision of Treasury grants to the needs of


the people and a definite social and economic plan, we shall be in the same spot as we were under the Tories and the National Liberals before the war.
I want to know what the policy of the Government is about connecting up by viaducts and bridges the islands of the Outer Hebrides, which would solve many of the inter-island difficulties of intercourse and communication; and thereby make more attractive to any industrialists with new industries who want to go out there an area which is at present discouraging and difficult because of bad transport. I want the Minister of Transport to tell me what is going to be done about reconstructing the main road from Tarbert to Rodel in Harris. Before the war that road was supposed to have been going well ahead; but war broke out and the road ceased to go ahead and seems by present indications unlikely to do so for a good long time to come. I want a definite statement on that and if Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel and his county council are wrong in this connection, let the House have a statement from the Minister saying so, because the local people need to know. We had a tragic accident on that road recently. A young man and his fiancee in a vehicle, because he moved perhaps a matter of inches, with no safety margin from the middle of the road, went over a cliff and both of them were killed. That can happen at almost any point on that road; and there are many other roads on the islands, especially in Harris, which are equally bad and dangerous.
I do not think the Minister has any conception of our roads on the islands. If General Wade had gone there in his day, he would have made a better job than the Ministry of our Highland roads. Let the right hon. Gentleman stop saying the problem must be left to the local statutory authority, which is the local authority and without whose sanction he cannot act. Perhaps an official road-dictator would be an idea for the Isles and North West if he could keep to his own job strictly. I have been given no hope as yet from the Scottish Office or the Ministry of Transport about the North Ford bridge which is the logical complement of the viaduct bridging job which started with the bridge between Benbecula and South Uist. It would link the four islands to-

gether and bring the populations into closer proximity and permit intercommunication much more cheaply than now. I have not had an answer from the Ministries, giving any immediate hope about the Ness-Tolsta Road, which would open up the best land in the Island of Lewis. This would be of benefit to those wanting small holdings and it would complete a main circular road round the whole Island of Lewis. It would also be very much a tourist road; but it would be of great practical value to the prospective small holders. It may be under consideration; and I urge an early decision. We must recognise that the islanders go in for part-time agriculture. The crofter has not a full living from the croft.
There are other things the crofters have to do to live; and it is essential that they should have good roads and good transport. One especial appeal now. The Minister is keen about ferries. Let me present him with one on the Island of Lewis. Between the Island of Lewis and Bernera we have for years been pressing that a viaduct be constructed. For many years a community of several hundred people in Bernera have been isolated and cut off from the parent island of Lewis and inconvenienced generally. I hope I may have touched the Minister's heart although I have not touched successfully the Chancellor of the Exchequer's pocket, about this project, which in Lewis is the most deserving priority of all the many deserving cases. When people come to the end of the road on Lewis they have to get out of the car or the bus․and local people have to travel 30 miles on a miserable road․carry their goods down the rock and into a little boat. They are ferried across the Sound. On the other side they go through the same process, humping the goods up the rocks and then marching for two or three miles. The weather is not always midsummer in the outer Hebrides. I wish the Minister would go up there and see this miserable business for himself.
The Secretary of State has complained that the council have not asked for a grant. That is now remedied. The local authority, I understand, has now applied: and all that stands between the people and satisfaction of this demand is the financial help we have asked for so long. As for this miserable, inadequate grant


business, if I believed we are going to measure the convenience and comfort and the whole future and prosperity of the people against money only, and not think in terms of human values and the gratitude we should all owe to the people who manned the Merchant Navy and the Armed Forces so gallantly and in such high numbers, then I would give up the struggle. But it is because I have some hope even now that the Minister of Transport, the Treasury and the Scottish Office will get their heads urgently together and take some action, that I make this one more appeal.

Mr. E. P. Smith: What does the hon. Member consider to be the main cause of the very high percentage of unemployment in the Western Isles? I must apologise to the hon. Member for the fact that I was not here at the beginning of his speech, but he gave very remarkable figures about the unemployment in the Western Isles Could he give the actual reason?

Mr. MacMillan: There was unemployment long before the war. During the war itself, apart from employment on the aerodrome and Government works for the older men, there was still heavy unemployment. Since the war that has increased. In 1936 the House agreed that the conditions in the Isles were conditions of distress and the resolution before the House was unanimously approved and accepted. That was the situation then. Since then the necessary public works schemes have never been properly undertaken. Such schemes are still waiting and would give us a short term employment programme and a breathing space in which to develop a long term policy. Another thing has been the failure over the last 20 years of the fishing industry; and a further reason, the neglect of the agricultural industry of the islands.

5.45 P.m.

Major McCallum: I am sorry that the Minister of Transport has departed. I was hoping to say a few words which might interest him in connection with what the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. MacMillan) has already said about Cabinet Ministers going on an imaginary journey. A report I sent to the Minister of Transport the other day extended an invitation to him to partake of a journey with me․an actual invitation which I hope will be accepted. It is now

six years since the House had an opportunity of discussing this transport Vote for Scotland. I well remember the last occasion because it coincided with my entry into this House and this was the subject I chose for my maiden speech. That was in June, 1940. This․June, 1946․is the first occasion since then on which we have been able to discuss the same urgent problem of transport facilities, or lack of transport facilities, in the Islands and Western Highlands of Scotland. On Monday last we discussed very thoroughly a phase of agriculture which is the main agricultural industry of the Islands and Western Highlands․hill-farming. I do not therefore propose to go into that part of the island industry this afternoon, except to say that the question of steamer freights and steamer services have a very vital effect on our hill farming.
By question and by report to my hon. and right hon. Friends of the Scottish Office, and to the Minister of Transport, I have raised various points in connection with these steamer services, but we do not get much forrader. Two of the greatest handicaps on our farmers in the Islands and Western Highlands are the highly rated freight charges and the uncertainty of the sailings of the steamer services. I was dismayed to hear the statement by the Secretary of State this afternoon. It will be heard with the greatest dismay throughout the Highlands. He is considering the question of raising still further the freight rates for our steamer services. They are high enough in all conscience, even though they may be only 10 per cent. above the prewar rates. Yet now the Highlanders have been told that the Government are considering raising the freight rates still further. I do not see much point in spending a whole afternoon on Monday on the Hill Farming Bill, when the principal areas to which that Bill will apply will be unable to operate it because these increased freight charges will be an overwhelming obstacle. The hon. Member for the Western Isles and many other people interested in this question, and indeed the late Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr. Tom Johnston, are firm advocates of flat rates for all commodities, but principally agricultural commodities, for the coastal steamer services to the islands of Scotland. I hope that the Scottish Office will consider this question of flat charges for farm produce. It


has been said that the subject is too difficult, that it must be done regionally, and cannot be done completely for the whole area of the Highlands. Whichever way it is done, I implore the Secretary of State to cooperate with the Minister of Transport, to see if they can arrive at some form of flat rate transport at reasonable charges for the farming community.
The other great handicap is the uncertainty of the steamer services. The Secretary of State referred to the two companies․the MacBrayne Company and the MacCallum Orme Company․ which serve the Western Islands. Every year since I have been in this House I have had experience of the difficulty of travelling about between the mainland and the Islands. During the war years, quite obviously, some of the boats were wanted for the war effort, and we had to put up with whatever came along, but if we grumble at the bad accommodation on the boats still running, we grumble still more about the uncertainty of whether you can leave a certain island on a certain day, or whether you can embark on the mainland with the knowledge that you will sail on a certain day. Time and again would-be passengers arrive at Oban or other ports of Argyllshire intending to take the boat for one of the Islands. Time and again, either the boat has not arrived, or the sailing is put off for some unknown reason, and yet no notification is ever given to those intending passengers. They arrive at the port of embarkation with no possibility of getting accommodation for themselves and, what is worse, no possibility of feeding the stock they are taking back to the island until a boat sails. I implore my hon. Friend to take that up with the shipping companies concerned. If they have old boats, let us have a slower schedule, but one to which the boats can keep.
I had an experience only the other day when I wanted to embark for the Island of Colonsay. I was recommended to go and wait in Glasgow until the' boat sailed but I had not the time for I was too busy here and in my constituency I went to the Island of Islay and waited there for a boat which I was told before I left London would sail on a certain day. When I arrived at my home, I was told it would not sail until the day following

that originally given. I made all my arrangements to sail on the revised date but I had no sooner got down to other work when I had a telegram to say that the boat would sail on the original date. So everything had to be cancelled again, and I set off post haste intending to take the boat at midday on the Wednesday, only to receive another telegram to say it would sail at 6 o'clock in the morning and not at midday.

Mr. McKinlay (Dumbartonshire): Would not the solution be for the hon. and gallant Gentleman to cut the telegraph wires?

Major McCallum: The confusion would be even worse.

Mr. M. MacMillan: What telegraph wires?

Major McCallum: What happened when I wanted to come away from the island? I made arrangements to be picked up from the island two days later, on the Saturday. When I arrived in my constituency from London a telegram had been received saying that I could not be picked up on the Saturday but on the Monday. I was not picked up either on the Saturday or the Monday. In fact, I was picked up on the following Wednesday. That sort of thing may be a joke for a Member of Parliament but it is no joke for a farmer taking a number of cattle or several hundred sheep across to market on the main land when there are no facilities for himself or for looking after the stock at the embarkation point. I was rather dismayed when I heard the Secretary of State say that the boat which is now on the Stornoway run will be replaced by a new boat and that the present vessel will be available for service elsewhere. I have a vision of the old boat being sent down to Argyllshire to run another uncertain service down there ․but perhaps it will sink on the way. I wish next to refer to the Island of Lismore. I must apologise for going into details about these various islands but unless.we make these matters public nothing is ever done. My hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles seemed to apologise for being what he called a constituency Member—

Mr. M. Macmillan: If I might interrupt, I did not apologise; I said that hon. Members were inevitably driven to be so, and


that it was to their credit that they made themselves a nuisance in order to put this case across to the public.

Major McCallum: I am glad of that correction because I agree that if it were not for Members of Parliament representing those remote constituencies saying what they can in the House of Commons, nobody would pay the slightest attention to these matters. Everybody says how thrilling is the song, "The Road to the Isles," but if hon. Members and the greater part of the British public knew how uncomfortable are the roads to the Isles, they would not be so fond of singing about them. The Island of Lismore is one of the most fertile on the West coast of Scotland. It raises a large quantity of livestock and its nearest point to the mainland is only just over a mile, while the distance to Oban is about seven miles. In a small boat it can be reached in a little over an hour. It has a service of one steamer per week. The reason why there is only one steamer a week is because the inhabitants of Mull say that if the boat which goes to Mull and Oban called at Lismore every day of the week, it would have to start an hour earlier from the Island of Mull. There may be technical difficulties as well, but Lismore is an important island, with 240 people living on it, engaged in very successful agriculture, and some attention should be paid to providing an adequate steamer service for that island. I see that the Scottish papers arc advertising that Mac-Callum Orme and Company are to run pleasure excursions to the Island of St. Kilda. That island was eventually evacuated simply because of neglect and the lack of steamer services. Instead of steamers to run tourists to the island of St. Kilda why not send them to Lismore and the other islands for the sake of the farmers and their produce? It would be of far more value to the country and, unless something of that sort is done, there will not only be St. Kilda but many other islands which will become only historical relics.

Mr. Hoy: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman agree that these services are run by private industry; and would he and his party agree that, in the interests of the people in the islands, they ought to be put under public ownership with a view to providing these services?

Major McCallum: I am coming to that, but I wanted to draw attention to the one or two islands which get the worst possible steamer services one could imagine. All the other islands․Coll, Tiree, the mainland of Ardnamarchan․ all these I would mention too, but Colonsay and Lismore I mention particularly, because both are about the same size, both have good agricultural soil, and yet they have the most appalling steamer communications. The Joint Under-Secretary will, I am sure, know that there is a scheme to adopt a vehicular ferry between the North point of Lismore and the mainland. I implore him to get on with that. Let us have the ferry instead of discussing the matter and laying it on one side. We shall never get any forrader if we do that.
In the course of a question to the Minister of Transport in the House not so very long ago, I mentioned that the services today to the Islands are far worse than they were in 1914. I think it is inexplicable. Hon. Members have said to me often, " Why make these complaints to the Labour Government? Why did you not make them to the previous Government? " All I can say is that since I have been in this House there have been three Governments and I have made the same complaints to every Government with exactly the same results. I am against nationalisation of industries which are thriving concerns, and which I feel would be ruined by it, such as iron and steel; but there are one or two public services, particularly in remote parts of the Highlands and Islands, such as these steamer services which I would be quite pleased to see brought under some public corporation, such as the London Passenger Transport Board. I am dealing with these matters in no party spirit, for no party could make the sufferings of these people a matter for party slogans.
The Secretary of State has referred to reviewing the subsidy to MacBraynes and to MacCallum Orme & Co. No private concern could make this steamer service around the West coast of Scotland an economic proposition. The situation is such that only by Government help could the service be developed. It might be that if it were properly developed and people went to live on the Islands, instead of leaving them, traffic and freights could be increased and it could be turned back to a private organisation, but I feel that


this is a question which should be dealt with in the same way as the trunk roads. After all, these steamers are nothing more than glorified ferries from the mainland to the Islands. I gather that the Minister of Transport has set up a committee of inquiry to go into the whole question of ferries, and this is a question of rather luxurious ferries. I have been speaking so far about steamer services and what we consider are deplorable conditions not so much from the point of view of accommodation․although that is bad enough, but that we recognise is owing to the war․but from the point of view of uncertainty. I support the hon. Member for the Western Isles in what he says about the captains and crews of the boats. No one could praise too highly their courage, courtesy and skill. It is also a question of the uncertainty of charges made for freights.
There is a solution to this transport problem, and that is the air. There is no doubt that air transport must be the solution of Western Islands transport. I am not going into detail about "approved routes"In civil aviation. What must be dealt with by the Scottish Office is the provision in every inhabited island with a sizeable population, of a landing ground of some sort. Such a landing ground could be made on the Island of Colonsay and one could be made on the Island of Coll. Last year there was a fatal case on that island because the patient could not be got to hospital. These islands do not lie on what the Ministry of Civil Aviation call "approved routes." Nevertheless they are centres of population which require communication with the mainland, and I am quite convinced that for mails, passengers, and light goods, an air service must be brought in to supplement, and in many ways take the place of, the steamer services. Although I may not live to see it, I believe that in 10 or 20 years' time all our livestock will be carried by air instead of undergoing the appalling conditions on some of the cattle boats which serve farmers for the markets on the mainland. There is no question but that air transport is coming. Many people laugh at the idea, but the carriage of livestock by air has already been done in Australia for more than seven years, and there is no reason why it should not be done in the Western Islands.
Only yesterday, or the day before, I heard on the wireless the report of a new amphibious machine, a twin-engined machine with a seating capacity for seven. That is a machine which would suit the island traffic extremely well. In places where it is not possible to make landing grounds, such machines could land in harbours, or off the coast, in good weather. I am certain that both steamer and air communications will have to be thoroughly speeded up and developed if we are going to prevent the constant departure of the inhabitants from the islands. Many people would ask, " What do we get from the islands? What is the good of bothering about the islands at all? " Besides cattle and sheep we get a very fine breed of men and women. In the Outer Isles and throughout the islands in times of national emergency, we look for provision of reservists for the Royal Navy and other Forces from them but I am certain that unless something is done to remedy these transport difficulties we will lose that very fine body of men and women, and all the sentimentalism of "The Road to the Isles " will become a complete farce.

6.8 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher: I would like to ask hon. Members to take a trip with me from the Islands to the Kingdom of Fife. There they will find not only a widespread coalmining industry, but quite an important agricultural industry. Today, the Secretary of State spoke highly of the agricultural committees, and the work they have been doing. I want to refer to a question which concerns the agricultural committees, the Secretary of State and a man engaged in agricultural production in Fife. Regulation 62 (4, a) was directed towards preventing speculation in land, but at the same time was intended to provide a measure of security for farmers who were being encouraged to put everything they had into production during the years of the war, to bring the country out of the difficulties with which it was faced. It would be a shameful thing if we encouraged farmers to put everything they had into the production of food, and if at the first opportunity someone bought the land and threw the farmer off his farm. Obviously that is something which should not be tolerated. If there was anything necessary in the way of further developing the land, it should be the job of the agricultural com-


mittee to encourage the farmer, or farmers, and to assist them if necessary with any capital they may need for that purpose.
In the case to which I wish to draw attention, there is quite a possibility of a loss in production, although the Minister says, in a very long correspondence I have had with him, that as a result of putting the farmer off his farm and allowing a new tenant to enter, he expects to get greater production. I will consider that in a moment. In general, I would lay it down that in our land it should not be possible for anyone to buy " our land."The land should be under the control and direction of the Government acting in the name of the people and that the best of the land—

Mr. McKie: On a point of Order. Is it in Order for the hon. Member to discuss land nationalisation proposals, which would require legislation?

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): The hon. Member appears to be only illustrating his argument and therefore is not out of Order.

Mr. Gallacher: Then I would say that the land should be under such direction as would ensure that the best of it is used for agricultural purposes and the rest for other purposes essential for the community.
In this case, a farmer by the name of Thomas Ramsay worked for 10 years as manager of a farm on the estate of Mr. Dalgleish, where he had gone to work as a boy. When he had been manager for 10 years, Dalgleish began disposing of his land and asked Ramsay to take over part of it on lease and farm it for himself, which he did. He has now spent 10 years as a farmer, 10 years of the hardest possible work, cutting up and developing new land. When war came there was a demand for further cultivation. Ramsay is not only a farmer but a stock breeder, and he had used a considerable part of the land for raising stock, using another part for agriculture. As a result of the request made by the Government during the period of the war, a considerable amount of grazing land was put under the plough, and considerable agricultural production resulted. This man, who is now 54 years of age, is assisted on the farm by his wife, a son aged 23 and a daughter aged 20. Another daughter has

just returned home after demobilisation from the A.T.S. This man and his family have been working on this land for 10 years, building up the farm and a home. Then the land is disposed of, and a lawyer in Edinburgh buys this particular section of the estate. Apparently the good lady of this lawyer takes an interest in agriculture, and is anxious to have her own farm. So last year Ramsay received notice that he has to leave the farm this season.

Sir Basil Neven-Spence: On a point of Order. With what part of the Estimates is the hon. Member dealing?

The Deputy-Chairman: If that question is addressed to me, I am of the opinion that the hon. Member is in Order.

Mr. Gallacher: As I have already pointed out, the Minister, in presenting the Estimates, drew attention to the urgent need for agricultural production, and to the services rendered by the agricultural executive committees. I am dealing with a situation that came within the purview of the agricultural executive committee and of the Secretary of State for Scotland. In my view, it affects very seriously the question of agricultural production. I am absolutely convinced that if a man with the experience that Thomas Ramsay has had as the manager of the farm, and then as a farmer and stock-raiser himself, is put off the farm to allow a lawyer from Edinburgh, however competent he may be in the courts, to take possession of the land and leave that experienced man without occupation, it will not be to the advantage of agricultural production or stock raising in Scotland.
Of course, it is the business of the agricultural committee to see that farms are worked properly. The agricultural committee has never at any time found cause to complain of this particular farmer, but he is ordered off the farm, and the owner is proposing to take possession. The tenant makes an appeal to the Minister not to give sanction for his removal. The Minister says that action was taken on the report of the agricultural executive committee. That report is not divulged but it is quite clear that the committee has not at any time found anything wrong with the husbandry of this farm. But for some other reasons․I do not know from whence they come or what


they are․the Minister thinks he will get better production from the new tenant. Will anyone tell me how it is possible to displace a man and his family who have the experience of this man and his family, and replace them by a lawyer and his good lady, however intelligent they may be, and by that means to get better agricultural and stock raising production?

Sir William Darling: The hon. Member displaced from his constituency a much more experienced Member of Parliament. Is he suggesting that he is not as good as his predecessor?

Mr. Gallacher: I did not catch the gist of what the hon. Member said.
I do not think that anyone could seriously argue that it is possible to increase agricultural production by a process of that kind, unless it is argued that the new tenant can put in cash․extra capital. Perhaps they can say something like that. But, surely, if there was a case for changing the method of farming that land, if there was the need to increase the productivity of that land by supplying new capital, it was one of the duties of the agriculture executive committee to see that that was done, where there was good husbandry. In this case nothing has been said against the farmer, no directions have had to be given to him at any time, he has always carried out his work and has achieved good production, as can be testified by those who have had to deal with him. Yet we get a situation of this kind. Let me give just one testimonial by a neighbouring farmer, one who has known him for a considerable time. This neighbouring farmer claims that Ramsay is one of the best agriculturists in the country. There are so many documents that I have some trouble in finding this letter.

Sir W. Darling: On a point of Order. Need we trouble the hon. Gentleman for the testimonial from the neighbouring farmer?

Mr. Gallacher: It says here:
In sympathy with Mr. T. Ramsay regarding the unjust treatment he has received at the hands of the Scottish Secretary, I hereby state the following facts. I have known Mr. Ramsay for the past 30 years and I can guarantee he is a first class agriculturist in all branches, especially stock. One has only to look round the steading at West

Grange and note the trophies he has won at the leading agricultural shows in Scotland. I am safe to say there isn't another display like it on any farm within a radius of 10 miles at least. Further, I have known West Grange intimately for the past 30 years, my late father having grazed stock there at that time. I can testify that said farm has improved beyond all measure since that time, especially the arable land; the grazing my father had was a rabbit infested poor pasture indeed. I can truthfully say West Grange has doubled its value under Mr. Ramsay's management. He was reared on one of the worst farms in Clackmannanshire, his forebears having farmed the Feerings Farm for over 300 years. In short, he belongs to the body of men who have made Scotland famous as the stock farm of the world. I am, yours truly, (Signed) John J. Kirk.
That is from a neighbouring farmer—

Sir W. Darling: Is he a member of the agricultural executive committee?

Mr. Gallacher: Ramsay has other testimonials from those who deal with stock as well as those concerned with agricultural produce.

Major Lloyd: This point is very interesting and I have a great deal of sympathy with what the hon. Member has said. Would he agree that all he has said is a most typical example of Socialistic bureaucratic tyranny?

Mr. Gallacher: No, far from it. This is one case where what is called Socialist bureaucracy has not functioned. It is not Socialist bureaucracy when a man has given his life to the building up of a farm and the owner of the land sells it, that someone else can turn him out lock, stock and barrel, and leave him without employment. What has that to do with Socialist bureaucracy?

Sir W. Darling: It is confiscation.

Mr. Gallacher: What I demand is that we have a little bit of Socialism, so that a man like that can be secure in the farm for which he has worked so hard. This is the point I want to make. It is not merely a matter of cash. It may be said that the incoming tenant will pay him for the farmhouse and the materials and so on; but the incoming tenant cannot pay him for the life he has put into the soil. That is a thing for which he cannot be paid. Here is a man who has toiled, ripped up the green land and brought it into cultivation, given year after year feeding it and caring for it. After he has done all that labour someone comes along and


says, " Put him out and let me in and I can give you more production than you are getting from this man."This is not a question of taking over new land and tearing it up, ploughing feeding and cultivating it, but taking over the life-blood of another man and his family. Is it possible that we should tolerate that?
I say to the Minister that there can be no justification for that, and if ever there was a case in which a farmer should have been given security, it is the case of Thomas Ramsay, of West Grange Farm in Fife. I ask the Minister to go into this matter again and ensure that this farmer with his long experience and great knowledge will be allowed to carry on the valuable work he is doing in the 54th year of his life, after working from boyhood as an agriculturist. He should not be thrown on to the streets but should stay in this useful employment. It will be a shame to the Scottish Office if he is turned out and I hope something will be done about it.

6.25 p.m

Mr. Spence: There is one aspect of this Debate which has been touched on both by the Secretary of State and by my hon. Friend the Member for West Perth (Mr. Snadden) which I want to go into in a little more detail. It concerns the value of research to agriculture. At present we are spending in Scotland on research and education in agriculture something like £450,000. I think that every penny of that money is well spent. The point to which I wish to draw special attention is the work that is being done in my own constituency and in Aberdeen. I hope I shall be forgiven if I seem a little parochial but we have a remarkable set-up there of three great institutes which are concentrating on research into the troubles of agriculture. These institutes have been built up over the years by Government grant and private endowment They have rendered a great service to the nation, and indeed to the world, as a result of their discoveries in matters of nutrition and of food production.
They are the Rowett Institute, the North of Scotland School of Agriculture, and the Macaulay Soil Research Institute. Belonging to these establishments are the Duthie experimental stock farm, the Craibstone experimental farm and the Glensaugh hill sheep research farm.

These establishments, together with the team of experts who are running them, form an organisation of chemists for biological and organic research which is unique in Great Britain. The work includes research into both human and animal dietetics, into the effect of mineral deficiencies in the soil, into animal and plant diseases and into maximum productivity of crops. Alongside this work, of course, is the work of training those who are to work on our farms. I suggest there is one lesson in particular to be learned from what has been achieved. The scientists and experts and the members of the governing boards of these establishments are practical men. They approach all problems of agricultural research with three things in mind․the interest of the producer, of the consumer and of our own national economy. That is why the work that has been done"In Aberdeen has been of tremendous value nationally, because it is not academic dilettante work but practical research which gives practical results․results which can be translated into £ s. d. on the farms.
Hon. Members probably know that at the Rowett Institute a great deal of the trial and error of experiment was done to settle the basis of the diet on which this nation had to live in the war years. There was also a notable discovery which was perfected there. That was the introduction of iron into pigs' food in order to overcome anaemia which was proving a great scourge amongst pigs. The development and application of the Australian discovery of the introduction of cobalt into the fertilisers which are put on grazing grounds for sheep has had remarkable results. There have been a number of other researches including the successful one of the prevention of virus disease in potatoes. Probably one of the best known discoveries has been the evolution of what is called " college mixture."This is a mixture of grass seeds which has been found of immense value and has produced for the nation thousands of pounds' worth of extra fodder. But perhaps the most valuable thing produced by the Rowett Institute is my hon. Friend the Member for Scottish Universities (Sir J. Boyd Orr) who is now head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. He has given a lead to the world today in food, and I wish to draw the attention of the Secretary of State to the fact that his spirit still lives in Aber-


deen, and the tradition he set up of cooperative work and coordination between those three great organisations is still carried on today.
I want to refer briefly to the economy of our farms. On our Scottish farms, 75 per cent. of the food value produced is in the form of livestock or animal products. Therefore, the recent cut in animal feeding stuffs is to be regarded with grave misgiving in relation to what the future economy of our farms may be. So I appeal to the Secretary of State to direct that the whole of the brains and skill of these research establishments should be directed to finding ways and means of mitigating the impact of this restriction of feeding stuffs on the day-to-day economy of our farms all over Scotland. The stock we breed must be healthy, and it must be kept properly. We must see that the risks of infection from various diseases are minimised, and I feel that there is a great future for these colleges in the training of stock-keepers, of whom there is a great shortage on the farms.
If we take a long-term view of our future standards of life, the first thing we think about is what our diet will be, and, in our diet of the future, when the standard of living has risen, the first requirement will be more meat. That is one thing which will be essential to a standard of living higher than our present level So we ought to envisage a stock production in Scotland of nearly twice as much as that of today, provided that it can be balanced with the economy of out farms. It must never be forgotten that animals put fertility into the ground, while wheat and cereals take it out. The more animals we have on the farm, the more productive and fertile the land will be. I should like to end on this note. Food is our greatest problem. I therefore hope that the Secretary of State will allow no financial considerations to stand in the way of our experts harnessing science so as to bring aid to humanity.

6.32 p.m.

Major Niall Macpherson: The Secretary of State started by referring to the necessity of building up a labour force, and I was disappointed that he did not elaborate that point to a greater extent. He does not seem to have very clearly in mind exactly how this is to be done. In the Balfour of Burleigh Report

the possibility of building up a flying squad to carry out improvements on hill farms was visualised, but the right hon. Gentleman made no reference to that. I hope the hon. Gentleman who is to reply, will develop the point a good deal more so that we may see how this labour force is to be built up, and how it is to be housed, because, for the future of agriculture in this country, an enormous amount depends upon the restoration of the fertility of the land.
The right hon. Gentleman said that, today, there is no such thing as an agricultural labourer; they all are or should be experts. Mechanisation is certainly turning agriculture into an expert science, and I was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman did not go on to say something more about the remuneration of these experts. It seems to me that, if we are to get a good labour force, we must be prepared to pay them as skilled men. Not only that, but other members of the community must not continue to insist upon the margins between agricultural wages and their own wages being maintained. The dignity and importance of the agricultural labourer must be emphasised and brought home to the community at large. On the other hand, the calling of agricultural worker does entail certain responsibilities. After all, a man who joins up as a soldier does not expect to work exactly an eight hour day. The conditions of work in agriculture are more varied and healthy than conditions of work in a factory. The same rigid rules cannot be applied, and I therefore hope that we shall encourage the agricultural worker not to insist on a rigid hourly basis, but to be prepared to work for longer hours in summer, and for shorter hours in winter on an elastic system, and to be prepared, if necessary, on smaller dairy farms, to give almost his whole time to his calling.
There is another subject to which the right hon. Gentleman did not refer, but which I consider is extremely important, and that is the position of women in agriculture. He did not mention at all the Women's Land Army, which has done such splendid work. There is an old Gaelic proverb which says that, where there are cows, there are women, and, where there are women, there is strife, and that has always been alleged as the reason why cattle went out of popularity in the Highlands. The fact is that, in


these days, much of the loss of labour from the land has been due to the fact that there are fewer women interested in agricultural subjects, and fewer who are prepared to work on the land. During the war, quite naturally, the men who served in the Forces very often went away and married wives in the towns. I suggest that, in cases where these men intend to come back to the land, provision should be made for training these women in agriculture. There should be institutes available for the purpose. There is one at Craibstone in Aberdeenshire, and others could be set up to train women not only for the Women's Land Army, but as future wives for farmers and farm-workers. I suggest that the Government should give serious consideration to that idea, because I am convinced the suitability of their wives is an important consideration to the success of men engaged in agriculture. It is on the devotion of the wives to the land that the future of agriculture, to a very large extent, depends.
At the same time, it is necessary that we should look further into the future. At present, the county organisers have been doing a very good job of work with the young farmers' clubs. The use of the county organisers, obviously, must be developed to a very great extent, and I hope that, in the next few years, we shall see a great development of demonstration farms linked with sub-committees on a county basis. It cannot be expected that farmers should go long distances, shall we say, from the Border to Cupar
in order to see demonstrations. There should be a development of farm institutes on an area basis. Provision is made in the Estimates for about £100,000 for the training of ex-Servicemen, part being for rehabilitation and part for training of men who have not been in agriculture before. I would like the Minister to say something about how that training is to be carried out, what hostel accommodation is available, what the length of the courses is to be and what response there has been so far.
Looking to the future again, it seems to me that it is necessary that short courses should be run in these institutes. After all, with progressive mechanisation of farms, it is essential that this training should be kept up, and that it should not only be a question of young men going for a year or six months' course,

or even for a course of three or four years. There must also be facilities for farmers and farm workers for renewing their knowledge from time to time, just as we propose providing facilities for doctors to have refresher courses from time to time. In the past—looking back, perhaps 100, or even 50, years—a great part was played in agriculture by the schoolteacher and even by the minister. I wish to speak particularly of the schoolteachers, who very often, even today, take a great part in assisting farmers. It seems to me that, for two reasons, schoolteachers who wish to devote their lives to rural areas, should not only have a rural background, but a certain agricultural training. In the first place, it is essential that they should be able to give the correct country slant to teaching and, in the second place, there is every advantage in maintaining sympathy with the parents in the areas. They should show that they are masters of the subject and are men of the country.
The Hamilton Fyfe Committee suggested that there should be a four-year course, including a practical course for specialist teachers in agricultural subjects, but that would be unsuitable for teachers in rural schools. I hope that consideration will be given to shorter courses being incorporated into the training of teachers, not primarily to equip them to bring students up to the higher certificate stage, but simply to enable them to "Teach the land " so that the children will remain interested in the land and will not constantly be seeking to go to the towns. I would remind the Committee that the Constable Committee recommended that:
In so fat as may be consistent with 'these objects, it is desirable to foster the rural. school and undesirable to concentrate country children in urban schools."
Very little implementation has been given to that policy over the past 20 years, and I would very strongly urge the Government to concentrate on teaching country children in their own rural districts.
The Secretary of State referred to the possibility of training men from the towns. It is indeed necessary to get an adequate labour force on to the land quickly, and it may be necessary, and advisable, to take men out of the cities and to train them as agricultural workers. But it is plainly not the right way, in the long run, to set about it. In order to develop a healthy agriculture, we must


take children from towns and teach them rural economy, and increase the number of agricultural institutes such as the Wallace Academy in the country for teaching them. Some deplorable figures were given to me in an answer by the Secretary of State regarding the number of children who take the school leaving certificates in agriculture. There are only six schools in Scotland equipped to bring children up to the higher leaving certificate standard in agricultural subjects. That is deplorably low, and, last year, there were only 14 pupils who took the examination. What is more, the lower leaving certificate has been suppressed for the period of the war. I hope that we shall see it brought back very speedily into operation.
May I say a word very briefly on the question of grants for hill cattle? The present arrangements are far better than
the ones which existed before. They consist of a subsidy of £5 for breeding cows and 3os. for bullocks and heifers. The condition is that these cattle should be 16 weeks in the year on the hill. If we are going to build up a healthy hill farming industry, it is essential to have hill herds, and for the future prospects, referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Aberdeen (Mr. Spence) in a most able speech when discussing the breeding of cattle on the hill for consumption in this country and for export, it is essential that we should start now, and encourage hill cattle herds in the interest both of hill sheep farming and of breeding stock. For that reason, I urge very strongly that the basis of this subsidy should be reviewed so that more incentive may be given to the hill farmer to have herds, not simply for summering, but throughout the year.
There is only one other subject to which I wish to refer and which is worrying farmers a good deal at the present time. It is the question of advertising for labour. We on this side of the House realise the necessity for the Essential Work Order. It is possible--and it may not be worth the risk—that, if the Essential Work Order were taken off, shepherds and workers on the more' remote hill farms would wish to relinquish their present situations and seek jobs nearer the towns. That is a possibility, but the present advertising rules are difficult to.justify

The position at the moment is that 28 days must elapse before authority is given to advertise. The man who is going to leave the place, and has authority to leave, has to give three weeks' notice. It very often takes a considerable time before the advertisement gets into the paper at all and a further time before it is answered. The man who 'accepts the job advertised has to give three weeks' notice and, of course, has to get permission to leave, if he is not a man coming out of the Forces. It will be seen that the net result, however well this rule is administered, is that it is possible for a farmer to be without a replacement altogether for at least a month which is, roughly, the intervening period. On the whole, this order has been sympathetically administered, but it is impossible
to avoid errors, and I very strongly urge that there should be closer coordination in this matter and that where, especially in the case of shepherds, there are vacancies, the farmer should be allowed to advertise right away, as soon as the vacancy occurs.
In conclusion, I would support very strongly the argument put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for West Perth (Mr. Snadden) regarding the necessity for having an appeal board to review the decisions of the war agricultural executive committees in cases of dispossession. I have a good deal of sympathy with tenants in a position similar to that of the case which the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) has referred to. That, however, is a matter of security of tenure —a subject which is in need of careful review, but as it requires legislation is outside the scope of this Debate. I hope the Government will give it their attention

6.49 p.m.

Sir Basil Neven-Spence: I am sorry to see that the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. M. MacMillan) is no longer in his place. He gave us a most lugubrious rendering of the " Skye Boating Song."I was under the impression that there was an undertaking that we were only to have a ten-minute version on this occasion, not the half-hour one. I am also sorry that, on his own showing, he has not been a completely successful representative of the Western Isles, and I rather gathered that, although he had been their Member for the last 11 years, he has achieved


nothing in that time. I do not think that was very fair to the Ministers with whom he had to deal, because I think if he counted his blessings he would find than quite a lot had been achieved.

Mr. Steele: The hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Argyll (Major McCallum) also made the same admission.

Sir B. Neven-Spence: I am now about to give a rendering of the Ballad of Sit Patrick Spens, and although I am sure it will not sound more cheerful than the contribution of. either of the hon. Members, it will at least be briefer. It was the hon, and gallant Member for Argyll (Major McCallum) who referred to the fact that it would be very doubtful if the Highlands and Islands would get the full benefit out of the Hill Farming Bill unless the transport problem were tackled. That is true, but the problem goes deeper than that. This question of transport in the Highlands and Islands has occupied the attention of a number of Committees in recent years, including the Hilary Committee in 1938, the Watson Committee in 1944, the Balfour Committee in 1944, and the White Fish Committee in 1945. Every one of those Committees drew attention to the profound effect which heavy freight transport rates have on the economic life of the Highlands and Islands. It has been conclusively proved that the steamer freights which producers in the Islands have to pay on imports and exports are the greatest handicap they have to contend with in the field of competition. When these freights are as high as they are now, they amount to a virtual tax on existence, and the more remote the area the higher the tax becomes. I myself live in the most remote Island of all, Unset, on which an airman was stationed in the course of the war. He wrote to his parents and said:
I always knew we had a far-flung Empire, but I never knew that any of it had been flung as far as this.
This state of affairs is a most serious obstacle to the development of agriculture, fishing and other industries like weaving in those distant places. The margin of profit in agricultural enterprises in places like Orkney and Shetland is very small, at the best. We have quite enough handicaps to deal with, due to matters like

latitude and climate, and what very small margin there is often becomes eaten up in freight transport charges. I remember what happened in 1931 when I myself suffered. When we sent our store lambs to the Aberdeen markets we got bills to pay instead of receiving cheques, because the lambs did not fetch enough to cover the cost of transport. I remember Shetland ponies being led to the edges of cliffs in 1931 and shot, because the prices they fetched in Aberdeen did not cover the cost of transport.
I could give endless details of the same kind. The handicap we have with regard to fishing, due to distance from markets, is already big enough without having to pay excessive freight charges. Freight charges must not be larger than the traffic can bear; otherwise enterprise is strangled at birth. One other point which I do not think anybody has mentioned is the tremendous handicap on building due to the high transport charges, which are so great that we are prevented from reaping the full benefit that we ought to get from Acts which are passed to help us solve these problems. All this has a depressing effect on the population, and it makes it very difficult to get any good system of land settlement going. People tend to leave the land, and in Shetland alone the population has gone down since 1871 from 30,000 to 20,000.
The general conclusion of the- Committees which have examined this problem is that there ought to be a scaling down of these charges, and that is urgently called for. It is impossible for the companies to do this on an ordinary commercial basis. They give us good steamers and good services, and we do not complain about that for the most part, but it cannot be clone commercially: of that I am sure. One or two hon. Members have suggested that we should have a flat rate. That suggestion ought to be considered because it might prove a solution. It is a point which requires careful examination by experts. We already have a kind of flat rate for commodities like flour, coal and artificial fertilisers. An hon. Member suggested that nationalisation might be the answer to our problems, but that would not make the slightest difference. If we nationalised the steamers tomorrow, we would still have this problem of the high rates to the Islands. it is a question of redressing the inequality which exists.
It is essential to make some effort to harmonise the cost of living in these remote rural areas with the cost of living in the more thickly populated areas. We cannot afford to let these Islands become depopulated. They make quite a big contribution to the country's larder in the way of store lambs and cattle, large quantities of eggs, fish, lobsters and so on. As one hon. Member pointed out. a great many of the men who live there are regular seafarers and served the country well in time of war. Many of them go abroad to the Colonies and the Dominions and do extremely well. What I have said about the effect of the freight rates on the population of the Islands refers to the period up to a few weeks ago. Since then, so far as Orkney and Shetland are concerned, a very serious thing has happened because the transport rates have suddenly been pushed up as high as 77⅔ per cent. That produces an absolutely impossible state of affairs, and let it be remembered that we have not the advantage of the enormous subsidies which the Western Islands have; £60,000 a year was the figure quoted, I think. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to take note of the fact that all the local authorities have written drawing attention to this urgent problem. He may not be able to cope with it within his existing powers, but I ask him forthwith to set up a departmental committee to go into this question of the freight charges as they affect the counties of Orkney and Shetland.
I wish to say a few words on another subject which has been referred to; the right hon. Gentleman himself referred to it. That is the question of township roads. These are vital to the community. Along these township roads come the supplies which the people have to get and the produce they have to send away. Children have to get to school along those roads as well. I say "These roads," although, in point of fact, they do not exist at all in many places. Arterial roads arc all very well, but arterial systems are of no use unless we have capillaries, and the township roads are the capillaries of our road transport system. The more isolated the community, the greater the need for access to the main roads. I think nothing has contributed more to the depopulation of some of the remoter rural areas in Scotland than the lack of roads giving access

to the main road system. I have here a list of 83 township roads wanted for the county of Shetland. Judging by the rate at which help has been given in the past in making these roads, 30 years would elapse before the programe could be completed. If we wait for 30 years there will be no people to whom to give the roads; they will have left the land.
The right hon. Gentleman knows the size of the problem. I would ask him to consider the possibility of having a five years' programme. Let us attempt to get this problem settled once and for all. The hon. Member for the Western Isles pointed out that far too much of our time in this place which we ought to spend on broader matters is in fact spent in dealing with local problems. It is one long battle to get the people we represent provided with the amenities which most people in the country take for granted, without ever being aware that they exist. These township roads are the concern of the right hon. Gentleman. In the past, the usual custom has been to make a 75 per cent grant, the remainder being found locally. It is becoming impossible to do that. These roads cost far more than they used to. A 1d. rate in the county of Shetland raises £60; a is. district council rate never raises more than a few pounds. not enough to keep up the existing roads. Better roads are needed now because of the road transport. I do not think it is fair to get the men who make the roads to contribute to their cost by accepting something below the prevailing wage. This is a problem which wants tackling basically. We might well consider giving a full grant of l00 per cent., and get the road question out of the way once and for all My to minutes is up. I have 16 other points with which to deal, but it would take me at least four hours to develop them fully. In view of the undertaking not to speak for more than 10 minutes I will continue this speech on the next occasion, only hoping, Major Milner, that the prospect will not prevent me catching your eye.

7.3.p.m.

Mr. Steele: I am very happy indeed to take part in this discussion. I agree with the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Neven-Spence) in what he said at the beginning of his speech. I also agree with the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) in the


great tribute he paid to the farmers and farm workers of this country. I associate myself with that tribute and I leave it at that, because I have no intention of taking the amount of time that the hon. Member did in paying that tribute. I represent a. constituency which has within its boundaries the most famous fruit-growing area in the whole of Scotland, namely, the Clydeside. I want to say something in regard to horticulture and horticultural research. We have had from the Government a statement on agricultural policy, and this afternoon we have heard from the Secretary of State for Scotland something of that policy and how it will affect agriculture. Those who are engaged in the horticultural industry remember that this policy does not affect them. In fact, so far as prices are concerned these are only maximum prices; they are not fixed prices such as are accorded to the agricultural industry. We do want from this Government some pronouncement with regard to horticulture. Those who are engaged in this industry remember the period between the wars, and are perturbed at the moment that nothing has been said regarding their future.
The principal point with which I wish to deal is that of research in connection with horticulture. The Clydeside area has become famous for certain fruits, for instance, apples, pears, plums, gooseberries and strawberries. It is,true that great quantities of strawberries have been grown in Lanarkshire for many years. In 1927, out of a total acreage of strawberries of 2,670 in Scotland, 1,193 acres were grown in Lanarkshire. Certain hon. Members this afternoon have drawn attention to the decline in the Highlands, and the depopulation of the Highlands in relation to agriculture. There has been a steady decline in fruit production in Clydeside for a number of years. In 1927, 2,670 acres were under strawberries in Scotland; in 1945 there were only 1,026 acres; with 282 acres of strawberries in Lanarkshire as against 1,193 acres in 1927. That decline has not been due to war circumstances. In 1932, out of a total acreage of 1,824, 515 acres were grown in Lanarkshire, and the 1932 acreage represented a steady decline from 1927. The reason for this decline in the growing of strawberries is because of disease which has affected the plants. One other feature emerges, namely, not only is there a decline in the acreage but a decline in the yield. At

one time it was possible to get six tons per acre; now, the average yield per acre is down to roughly 3o cwt. That is very important, and calls for a great deal of research.
We must pay tribute to the research already done in Auchencruive so far as strawberries are concerned. The main point with which fruit growers and horticulturists are concerned is that soil research is done at Auchencruive. They feel that the research ought to be done on Clydeside where the soil conditions might be very much different from those at Auchencruive. The difficulties are not confined merely to strawberries. There is a great deal of disease in plums and apples, and now it is also affecting the raspberries. While we recognise that the centre of Scotland is chiefly concerned with the growing of that type of fruit, many acres are grown on Clydeside. What has the fruit grower been doing? Prior to the war he was going over from the production of outside fruits to the production of fruits grown under glass. In 1942 there were 320 acres of glass in Scotland; of that approximately 200 acres were in Lanarkshire. That proves conclusively, I think, generally speaking fruit growing is concentrated in Lanarkshire.
Some hon. Members have questioned the statement that Lanarkshire is the most famous fruit growing area in Scotland, but
there are records which prove that fruit has been grown in that area since the year 845. I think that fact is important, because it proves that this area is eminently suitable for the growing of fruit. The fruit grower, as I say, has been leaving outside crops and producing under glass. Clyde-side, during apple blossom time, is one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland and many tourists visit it at that time of year, but I do not think the fruit growers ought to be expected to have this show merely for the benefit of tourists. They look for some other return, and that is why they have been turning to production, mostly of tomatoes, under glass. This practice was followed a great deal in Scotland prior to the war.
I welcome the Government's proposals regarding the research stations which, I understand, are to be built, but I press that the research station for fruit ought to be on Clydeside. My figures have proved, I think, that it is the area in Scotland


where fruit is grown extensively. Farmers in general do not want merely to accept instructions, or advice, on paper. They want to see results in practice. It is much better, I feel, for the farmer to go along to agricultural research stations to see how things are done. A farmer going to a research station and seeing the produce might say, "That is all right in your part of the country, but how would it be in my part? "Therefore, I want to see the fruit research station on Clydeside. Large areas of Clydeside have yet to be developed, as far as fruit growing is concerned. There are still many acres which could be taken over for the growing of fruit, and which, at the present time, are not being utilised at all. There is, further, the point that Clydeside is very near the two main markets, being less than 30 miles from Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Lanark shire itself is a development area. We can look forward to an unfortunate unemployment problem in Lanark shire for the next few years. Here on Clyde side, which has a fairly large population round about, we have something which could be used for—if I may say so —fruitful production. We are concerned at the moment to bring in light and heavy industries. Here is something lying at hand, which could be done. But before it can be done properly, a good deal of research is necessary. I want the Minister to realise the special importance of research in this case. Soil fertility was mentioned by the hon. Member for West Fife. I can assure him that, to this industry, the soil is very, very important. I am sure that the industry, with its own good intentions, and with the support the Government can give it, can look forward to big prospects in the future.

7.15

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: It is sometimes not difficult in Committee of Supply, when we are precluded from talking about anything which involves legislation, to become involved in the details of administration, and to forget the background against which the particular Estimates are being discussed. The background to the question of our Scottish agriculture tonight is darkened by two factors of immense importance which ought to govern and condition all political action. The first is a world problem, the problem

of the universal shortage of food. The second is a domestic problem, although its repercussions reach, or may reach, far beyond these Islands: the lamentable failure of His Majesty's Government to grapple with the realities of the postwar, problems; the reckless way in which they are adding, immensely and improvidently, to the burdens which have to be carried by the taxpayer, burdens which are so detrimental to the encouragement of enterprise and initiative; their refusal to face the need for a wages policy—all these are drawing us inexorably and with increasing momentum into the outer eddies of the maelstrom of inflation. We are sowing the wind. He would be a bold man, or a very foolish one, who would say, with any degree of confidence, that we can avoid reaping the whirlwind.
Side by side with these factors, which few would deny and none can ignore, is a feeling which is widely held throughout Scotland that the Northern Kingdom is not getting its fair share or receiving its proper recognition in the arrangements which are being made for the rehabilitation of Britain. Far more than in England, a flourishing agriculture is the basis of the prosperity of Scotland. If agriculture can be developed and brought to a high pitch of prosperity and efficiency, the effects of that prosperity will be felt throughout the land; and against the gloomy background of a world food shortage and the imminence of inflation the need to make the most of our own natural resources becomes the more apparent. Here, then, is a golden opportunity, an opportunity such as has never occurred before, to bring these three factors together, and to wring from the Government such assistance as may be needed to revitalize our countryside. Here is a heaven sent chance for bold planning and imaginative administration. Now is the time, if ever there was a time, to ensure for those who live by the land an honoured place in our national economy.
Let me pass to one or two of those details about which I spoke. First of all, with other speakers, I want to take up the question of agricultural labour, because that is at the root of our immediate problems. According to the latest figures, we have, I believe, a labour force in Scotland of only 113,000. That figure includes prisoners of war, casual labour and women, and with that labour force we


have to meet the whole of our requirements for an expanding agriculture. I was glad that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned in his opening speech the Essential Work Order. He recognised, and we all recognise, that that Order is necessary to keep the men on the land, because without it some of these precious men might drift away. On the other hand, we on this side say that the sooner that Order is removed, the better we shall be pleased. It gives rise to great hardship on both sides—both to farmers and to workers£ and we do not like to see men tied to a job which they do not want to do, and which they would not be there to do if they had a free choice.
The hon. Member for West Perth (Mr. Snadden) spoke about the increasing need for a labour pool, a mobile pool of labour to go from place to place as required. This has found mention in the Balfour Report upon hill sheep farming. it has occurred to me, and I have no doubt that it has occurred to the Minister, that we might make use of some of the Polish troops. There are 100,000 of them in the Second Polish Corps, and 60,000 of them are already in this country. The men who are coming from Italy will go into the Resettlement Corps. They make good farmers I know, because I have watched some of them at work. They are just the kind of men we want to help us, and they can do the job without putting one Scotsman out of work.

Mr. Hoy: According to the figures which have been given this week, 5,000 Poles will be coming to Scotland. There is great resentment in Scotland about any coming at all, and, in view of that, is the hon. Member now advocating that Scotland should have a larger proportion than 5,000?

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: I very much regret that the hon. Member should talk about resentment in Scotland. I know what he means. I was in Scotland, doing a humble job on the staff, when we thought that we were to be invaded any day. The Polish soldiers were standing by, from dawn to dusk, ready to defend our Scottish shores against the invasion which we expected at any time. I consider that that is an interjection which the hon. Member ought not to have made. We are desperately short of agricultural labour, and yet here are these men who are precluded almost from going to their

homes, wanting work to do. I am suggesting that they might well be used to help us forward with our agricultural problem in Scotland.
The Secretary of State spoke about 20,000 German prisoners of war being available now, whereas, according to the latest Press report from the Department, dated 4th May, the number is shown as 6,900. I know that the Department is very concerned at the moment that in many of the camps German prisoners of war are idle, so much so that in my own county the chairman of the agricultural executive committee is appealing through the Press to farmers and landowners to find between-the-season work, such as repairing and strengthening farms and roads, preparation of suitable stances for stacks in outlying fields to ensure adequate protection against vermin, burning of " lop and top " where trees have been cut down, hedging and ditching and so on, to prevent men being dratted elsewhere, thereby reducing the numbers available for harvest and other seasonal work. I would ask the Under-Secretary to explain the discrepancy between the two figures.
If it is a fact that men are idle in the camps, it adds force to the plea I have made to the Under-Secretary, and which I now make again, concerning the short. age of agricultural blacksmiths in Scotland. In the prisoner of war camps are a great many Germans who are skilled in this work. We are finding that many of these German agricultural blacksmiths, who are coming to us, would be quite good if they could speak our language, and if they knew our ways—apparently the German work is a little different from ours. They have to have a good deal of tuition from country blacksmiths who are working on their own. We have to pay them 2s. an hour, but they are not really worth it because of the language difficulty. I have three cases of this within a radius of a dozen miles of my home, and I know there are a great many other cases. I mentioned adequate protection of stacks against vermin. I was glad to see in the Estimates a sum of£62,000 for the destruction of rats and mice. In some places the work of destroying rats is being carried out very well, but in others it is deplorable. This ought to be tightened up.
I pass now to the question of organisation. We have all been inter-


ested in the efforts made by the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary to build up a new organisation with the new area executive committees and the advisory committees and so on, but I am not sure that we are working on the right lines. I am not at all sure that in this case the English system is not better. I say that for this reason. Our area executive committees are to have about 14 members, and these members are to be appointed by the Secretary of State after consultation with various representative bodies. In England the executive committees are more or less on a county basis. The chairman is appointed by the Minister, three members are drawn from a panel of six names submitted by the N.F.U., two are selected from a panel submitted by the Farm Workers' Union, two from a panel submitted by professional bodies, two or four are representatives appointed by the Minister, and one, possibly, from the county council. I like the idea of the representatives being drawn from a panel. The Secretary of State, like Caesar's wife, must be above suspicion, arid these committees must not only be constituted fairly, but they must be believed to be fair by the agricultural community upon whose good will their success or failure will depend. I think that we ought to have liaison officers on the area executive committees, and I hope that the Secretary of State is going to appoint them. There must be, as the hon. Member for West Perth and other hon. Members have mentioned, a right of appeal, which might well be to the Land Courts, and most of us are agreed that the Secretary of State, who is responsible to Parliament for the administration of Scottish agriculture, ought to have the final word.
Few agricultural operations have yielded greater results than the ploughing up of old and useless grassland and its direct reseeding. In the Highlands and on the hill and upland farms, it has had an immensely beneficial effect upon the stock-carrying capacity of the land. I can think of one instance in Aberdeenshire where land formerly carried only one sheep to four or five acres. Now, as the result of direct reseeding, it carries two cows and two calves for six months in the year. In the spring of 1945, the agricultural executive committees made great efforts, by means of lectures and films, to encourage the direct reseeding

of grassland and grants, in one case in my own constituency up to £7 per acre were made. That was £5 in ordinary subsidy, including the £2 grassland subsidy plus 50 per cent. of the cost of manuring. That these grants were not excessive can be proved by the fact that, in many cases, the actual work cost not less than £10 an acre, and, in some cases, £5 an acre. During the past winter and early spring, renewed attempts were made by the agricultural executive committees to get people to plough up more of this heavy grassland and reseed it. I know at least one district where the idea has caught on Farmers have booked their orders for the hire of caterpillar tractors and heavy ploughs, and all the other implements necessary for such an operation. It has been a great shock to those people, who have completed the job on the understanding that the grants would not be less than last year, to learn that the grants are now limited to £5 per acre, and that no assistance can be given in respect of manuring. It looks as if the executive committees concerned must have been wrong in paying half the cost of manuring last year If so, I think the Department should have noticed this and have prevented hopes being held out that grants on the same basis would be obtainable this year.
Another point is that because of our increased production of grain, we are going to grow more wheat straw than we have grown before. This wheat straw is not particularly useful as a by-product. We use it, as hon. Members will know, for thatching potato pits, and, to some extent, as bedding in byres and stables. During the war, it has been taken off our hands for paper making, because of the stopping of the importation of esparto grass. That grass is now coming in; but if this straw could be used during the war, cannot we cut out the esparto grass and go on using straw in the production of paper? I am not an expert on this matter and it may be that straw makes very poor paper, but I put it forward as a possible suggestion.
The recent cuts announced in feeding stuffs have been a lamentable, and for Scotland, which relies to the extent of 70 per cent. of its agricultural production of livestock and livestock products, almost a crushing decision. I would ask the Under-Secretary of State: Did the


Minister of Agriculture consult the Secretary of State before making his announcement on 4th June? By that, I mean, was there a real consultation to the extent of his being asked for his advice? If he did so, why was not a joint announcement made by the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland? We have to go further back than that to trace the trouble to its source. It is clear that the Government knew long before the crisis of February, 1946, that the world was likely to be short of bread grains. What did the Secretary of State for Scotland do? Did he look ahead and ensure that, at any rate, in Scotland we would play our part? We could then have planted the wheat we needed
Let us look at the figures. In 1943, we grew in Scotland 170,600 acres of wheat. In 1945, the figure had dropped to 91,000 acres. The target for 1946 was 80,000, initially, and increased in February to 100,000 acres. Those of us on this side of the House who know about farming, all said then that it was too late to make much difference. That appears to have been the case. The acreage of wheat this year in Scotland is about 83,000. Why, if the Government had been warned last autumn, did the Secretary of State not set a higher target than 47 per cent.—because that is all it is—of the 1943 production? A great Minister, knowing his agriculture and knowing his Scotland, would have foreseen the need, and acted accordingly.
It is unfortunate that seldom at so critical a juncture in our domestic affairs has Scotland's political leadership devolved upon men who are less versed in the ways and needs of the countryside. No one would pretend, let alone the right hon. Gentleman himself, that the Secretary of State has any intimate knowledge of agriculture. Everyone admires the zeal with which the Joint Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Fraser), is schooling himself in the ways and outlook of those who live by the land, but that he is new to the job, he himself would be the first to admit. No one would deny the determination of the other Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), to improve housing conditions, but his outlook, like those of his colleagues, and his upbringing and his sympathies are almost wholly urban. It is not the fault of these three

political heads of the Scottish office—some of us say that it is their misfortune—but it has grave disadvantages for Scotland as a whole, and its consequences may be serious at this time.
St. Andrew's House ought not to be the Edinburgh Office of the Ministry of Agriculture. What Scotsmen want to know is whether they have a real Minister in charge of the greatest and oldest of their industries, or whether the Secretary of State is the local agent, in their respective spheres, of the Ministries of Food and Agriculture. It is up to him. He will not lack support—and I say this in all seriousness£ from these benches if he makes the voice of Scotland heard in the Councils of the Realm.

Mr. McKinlay: Before the Joint Under-Secretary replies, I should like to ask him a question. Has he made any financial provision for laying on the water to smallholdings which is now a statutory obligation?

7.41.p.m

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Thomas Fraser): I do not know if I should begin by defending the present holders of office at St..Andrew's House—

Mr. McKinlay: We will defend them all right

Mr. Fraser: —but they have been violently attacked by the bola. Member for West Aberdeen (Mr. ThorntonKemsley).

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: No.

Mr. Fraser: Yes. The hon. Member said that the present holders of office for Scotland were incapable of looking after Scottish interests.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: I did not say that.

Mr. Steele: It will be in the Press tomorrow.

Mr. Fraser: The hon. Member said that we did not know the countryside. believe that the people of Scotland have more confidence in the people who are now in control at St. Andrew's House, than they had in all those great leaders of thought and opinion who were there before, but who allowed Scottish agriculture to get into the state in which it is now.

Mr. McKinlay: That well-known agriculturist 'Ernest Brown.

Mr. Fraser: The hon. Member went on to say that he did not want St. Andrew's House to be merely an appendage of the Ministry of Agriculture in England. A little earlier he had been regretting that we did not follow the example of the Ministry of Agriculture in setting up new efficiency controls. If we were just office boys, we would have followed the example of the boss. But we have a mind of our own. We have a better way of controlling agriculture than that proposed for England and Wales. Although the hon. Member sought to criticise our proposals in controlling the industry in the future, let me assure him that I discussed these proposals at very great length with all the interests concerned, and there is pretty general agreement that our proposals are sound and that these committees will serve the purpose for which they are being appointed.
Two other hon. Members discussed the need for creating a labour pool for agriculture. That may very well be desirable for the present or the immediate future during this time of shortages of labour and food. Under those conditions there is something to be said for the creation of a central pool, from which labour can be sent out to the different branches of agriculture as and when it is necessary for labour to be supplied to a particular branch. However, hon. Members who asked for a labour pool did not surely envisage that this industry would remain so depressed when we get away from these shortages that a beneficent Government situate at St. Andrew's House or in Whitehall would have to organise a central pool from which labour could be drawn.

Mr. Snadden: I think the hon. Gentleman must have got the point wrong. We are not going back to our prewar agricultural policy, and I was anticipating that we are going to have a policy which will make for improvement in the industry. I said that we could not cope with that policy with the permanent staff the industry has today, and, therefore, we require some continuing responsibility on the part of the Government to meet our postwar policy. It was to long-term developments I was referring.

Mr. Fraser: That is what I appreciate, because the Government are giving the

industry some assurances about markets and prices in the future, and it is because the Government are going to require the industry to attain certain standards of efficiency in the future that it will not need to bear on its own shoulders the responsibility for finding labour for the industry. I think the idea should be to make the industry sufficiently prosperous to attract labour. It will be a sad day for agriculture if in the future, when we get beyond the shortage of food, the industry cannot attract labour voluntarily.
The hon. Member for West Aberdeen asked me about the cuts in feeding stuffs that were announced yesterday. He wanted to know if the Secretary of State for Scotland had been consulted. He said if my right hon. Friend had been consulted why was not a joint announcement made. The answer is that the announcement that went out, was a joint announcement from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and from the Department of Agriculture for Scotland. There was the fullest consultations between the Minister of Agriculture, and the Secretary of State for Scotland. Indeed, the whole question of feeding stuffs and supplies was gone into very fully by our expert advisers, and the decision, since it was such a major decision, was taken by the Government and not by a single Minister of the Government. The need for the decision we regret very much. The hon. Member also asked me some questions about the supply of prisoner of war labour. He made certain assumptions, that there is an apparent discrepancy in the figures and I think he was wrong in his assumption. The figure of 6,900 prisoners of war to which he referred was the figure of Italian prisoners of war before the Germans started to come in. The number of 20,000 referred to by the right hon. Gentleman is the number of German prisoners of war available at the present time.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: I have a copy of the Press " hand-out " from the hon. Gentleman's Department. It is dated 4th May, 1946, and it gives the total labour at 113,000 and the prisoners of war are given as 6,900.

Mr. Fraser: I ask the hon. Gentleman to believe me that that figure was the figure of Italian prisoners of war, before the Germans began to come in. They are now coming in large numbers, and we


have 20.000 German prisoners of war. By the grain harvest this year we expect to have 31,000 prisoners of war, and by the potato harvest, 35,000.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: It is the Press " hand-out " of 4th May which gives the total official figures. It is most misleading if the figure is 20,000 and not 6,900.

Mr. Fraser: It would be much more misleading if I failed to correct the wrong impression that seems to have got abroad.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: It is in the Press statement of the hon. Gentleman's Department.

Mr. Fraser: This happens to be 6th June and I am giving the position today. I am telling the Committee the number of prisoners of war available today, how many there will be during the grain harvest, and how many we expect to have at the time of the potato harvest.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Could we have the exact figures of the total labour force estimated for agriculture in Scotland, and the total figure of prisoner-of-war labour required by the end of the harvest?

Mr. Fraser: I have not the total labour force figure before me at the moment, but if I can find them I will let the hon. Member know, either now or later. I have just given the prisoner-of-war force we expect by the end of the harvest. We expect 31,000 by the end of the grain harvest and 35,000 by the end of the potato harvest. The hon. Member for West Perth (Mr. Snadden), in a very interesting speech, called the attention of my right hon. Friend to the very grave danger of our cultivation interfering with the fertility of the soil, and asked whether we were keeping the question in mind. I can assure him that we are being advised by experts all the time, and that we do not want to give any directions to the industry to crop in excess of the capacity of the soil, or interfere with the fertility of the soil unwisely.
I may not know very much about agriculture, as was suggested during the Debate, but I have taken the opportunity of discussing this question with some experts, and I have considered the fears expressed by many agriculturists at the beginning of the war. Members who are more conver-

sant with the industry than I am, will agree that most experts, at the beginning of the war, would not have admitted that we could have put under the plough the acreage that we did during the war, without seriously interfering with the fertility of the soil. We all appreciate that we are getting to the danger point, and that great care will have to be taken that we do not do the soil irremediable damage by giving instructions to farmers which would have that ultimate effect.
The hon. Member for West Perth also asked about fertilisers, and specifically mentioned lime. I think the position may not be so bad. During the war, farmers had difficulty in regulating the supply of lime, because of transport troubles and so on. We have, at the moment, a provisional estimate for 600,000 tons of lime for agriculture. The hon. Member expressed fear that other interests would make a call upon that lime, to the detriment of agriculture. I do not think he need have any great fear. We have, as he knows, deliberately encouraged the output of lime for agriculture, and we shall go on doing so. We hope that farmers will, as far as possible, level out their demand for lime over the year, and that the provisional estimate will be reached, if not exceeded. The hon. Member also asked about the labour supply position for 1947, whether the Government could give a definite guarantee as to the supply of labour for that year. We must assume a measure of responsibility. If we are to give directions as to cropping when there is a shortage of labour the Government must accept a measure of responsibility for the supply of labour. We shall do our best to see that it is forthcoming, although I cannot, at this stage, say from which sources the supply will be made available.
A question was put also by the hon. Member for West Perth about spare parts for imported agricultural machinery. He said that farmers could not carry out large-scale cultivation, if they had not the machinery necessary for the job, together with a ready supply of spare parts. I believe that adequate provision has been made in the imports programme, despite the many difficulties, for the supply of spare parts. Up to now, this has been the biggest headache for the industry. It was feared that with the dollar position as it is spare parts would not be forthcoming from America for the large


number of American machines that we have here. I can give the assurance that we have that question very much in mind.
I was also asked about the dairy farming industry, and was told that farmers had to pay too many pipers and call too many tunes. It was said that dairy farmers did not know to whom they were responsible, as there were so many inspectors and investigators calling upon them. I and my right hon. Friend think that that is so, and my right hon. Friend is taking steps to bring that to an end. In fact, he is in the process of setting up an independent committee, with the following terms of reference:
To review the services at present in operation in Scotland in connection with the production of milk and the quality of supply, and to consider and report what improvements in those services are desirable and practicable.
My right hon. Friend appreciates the difficulties which are facing farmers at the present time, in connection with foodstuffs, labour, housing, and water supplies, and that on top of all those things there are different authorities to whom farmers are responsible. Farmers want to see these inspections and investigations canalised, and so does my right hon Friend.

Mr. Snadden: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether he is in favor of setting up a Division in the Department to deal with animal health?

Mr. Fraser: My right hon. Friend is aware of the great need to canalise these inspections and investigations, and is hoping to get advice towards that end from this independent committee. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher)—who apologised for his. inability to be present during my speech—raised a question to which I ought to reply. He spoke at considerable length about Farmer Ramsay in West Fife, and asked why the new owner had been permitted to terminate the tenancy of the farm. As Members will know, the regulation to which the hon. Member referred was one which was introduced to provide against land speculation during the time of food shortage. I think "during the period of the emergency" would probably be the words used. In this case the farm in question changed hands quite recently. When a farm changes hands the notice to quit is

not valid except with the permission of the Secretary of State, who may only have regard to the probable effect on food production of the change of tenancy. He considered this case very fully indeed and was satisfied—and indeed anyone who listened to the hon. Member for West Fife this evening must also have been satisfied—that food production was very likely to increase as a result of the proposed change in tenancy, and in the circumstances my right hon. Friend had not the right to withhold his permission for the notice to quit to be issued. The hon. Member was really arguing about the powers the Secretary of State for Scotland might have in controlling tenancies in agriculture. That, I am afraid, is a matter which it would be out of Order to discuss at any length tonight.
I think I ought to turn now to transport questions. The hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. M. Macmillan), the hon. and gallant Member for Argyll (Major McCallum) and the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Neven-Spence) all spoke about the steamer services to the Western Highlands and Islands and to the islands in the North of Scotland. Their questions, very largely, were addressed not to the Scottish Office but to the Minister of Transport. The hon. and gallant Member for Argyll made a rather surprising appeal to my right hon. Friend to nationalise and bring under common ownership the steamer services to those remote islands because, he said, they were an uneconomic proposition. But he went on to say that if the services to those islands were improved, and if the freight rates were reduced, the islands might well be repopulated and brought to a new prosperity, so that in course of time the services might very well become economic, at which date, the hon. Member suggested, we might transfer the control of those services back to private enterprise.

Major McCallum: I did not suggest that the present occupants of the Government benches would do that, but whoever may be the Government at the time. I did not suggest that in 20 years the present occupants will still be sitting there.

Mr. Fraser: In any case, we should be quite out of Order if we discussed whether the services should be nationalised or not. My right hon. Friend said in his opening speech that new contracts


were being negotiated with the companies concerned. Those contracts will not, as far as I am aware, be the subject of discussion in this House before they are ready to be brought forward for ratification by this House, but they will come before the House for discussion and decision before they become operative.

Major McCallum: Will they be subject to amendment?

Mr. Fraser: They will be subject to rejection, I would not say amendment, if the House is so minded. That, I think, would be the best occasion to discuss the matter thoroughly. All that has been said in the course of the Debate today will be of the greatest assistance to my right hon. Friend in negotiating the contracts. There is undoubtedly a very great need for improved services and I am sure my right hon. Friend is obliged to hon. Members for the suggestions that have been made. My hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles also discussed at some length the question of public works, roads and so on, in his constituency and other parts of the Highlands and Islands. He very much regretted that my right hon. Friend could merely indicate that a sum of t £60,000 was to be spent on those jobs this year, and asked what that sum meant. It means that we shall spend twice as much as was being spent annually before the war, and we shall spend it this year. He did not say £60,000 annually, he said £60,000 this year. That seems to be a good beginning. He also said that he had invited local authorities to submit schemes, and no doubt the local authorities are now preparing—indeed, some have prepared and submitted—their schemes. When they have done so I hope agreement may be reached on those which ought to be proceeded with, and I think it will be found at the end of the day that we are prepared to get down to the job of providing a reasonable and certainly very much improved type of services, whether by road, rail or sea, through the islands and Highlands of Scotland.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Could the Under-Secretary make some statement on the position in regard to the employment of children in gathering the potato harvest? The Secretary of State made a very definite promise that it would be dealt with by a spokesman for the Government and nothing has yet been said.

Mr. Fraser: So many questions have been asked that a number may have been overlooked, and I do not mind dealing with the question of the supply of child labour. I have gone into it very thoroughly. There is a mistaken view about that we have a sufficient number of unemployed adults in the country, arid a sufficient number of prisoners of war, Polish soldiers and so on, available to gather the potatoes. It just is not so. We employ about 80,000 people collecting the potato harvest. Last year we employed 41,000 children. This year we expect to employ just over 23,000 children. The children are supplementary labour; we will not employ any child to the exclusion of an adult, and wherever adult labour can be found it will be employed first. It is very difficult to take all the unemployed labour into the potato fields. The big reservoir of unemployed adults happens to be in the towns and cities; many of them are less physically fit or immobile men and women, and to gather the potatoes they have to go to Fife shire, to Angus, to Aberdeen shire and the remoter areas of the countryside. First of all many of them are less physically fit, secondly many of them are immobile and cannot be transferred, and thirdly even if they could be transferred the amount of hostel accommodation is very
limited indeed. Very nearly all the hostel accommodation that can be made available will be used by the Land Army, prisoners of war or soldier labour. I give the assurance on behalf of my right hon. Friend that wherever adult labour can be found it will be employed and the children will only be employed as a last resort.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Will adult labour at present unemployed be able to help?

Mr. Fraser: If they want to. One must not assume that all the people in the Western Isles are keen to go anywhere. They are only keen to work in the Western Isles. My right hon. Friend said in his speech that they did not want to go to the mainland. These people will not go to Fife shire or Aberdeen shire to lift potatoes. Any of them who volunteer to do so will be accepted by my right hon. Friend.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. McKinlay) asked questions about water supplies and the Department's holdings. I believe that financial


provision for them, and for other matters, exist in the money available in the Agriculture (Scotland) Fund. We have money to finance these projects. I believe that we have some responsibility under the recent Act. In some cases it might be wasteful to go ahead with schemes on our own estates, where larger local authority schemes are pending and would meet the need of the whole area.

PUBLIC EDUCATION (SCOTLAND)

8.12 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr.Westwood): The Education Estimate, which I understand is now to be debated, shows a net increase of nearly £2 million over the preceding year. A large part of this increase is due to the provision required because of the progress of the scheme of educational development which was embodied in the Education (Scotland) Act, 1945. It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I give a brief account of what is being done under some of the main heads of this programme. I will deal first with a matter which is of vital importance for the well-being of the younger generation, the provision of meals and milk for schoolchildren. As was announced in the House of Commons on 28th March, 1946, the Government have decided that milk for drinking shall be supplied free of charge in grant-aided primary and secondary schools from 6th August, 1946, the same date as that on which cash family allowances begin to be payable.
The Government also intend that midday meals in schools shall be free as soon as possible, but this cannot be done until school feeding facilities are more generally available. In the meantime, parents' payments for school dinners will continue, but will not exceed the cost of the food supplied. They may be remitted wholly or in part in proved cases of hardship. Within the next few days I shall be sending to the Scottish education authorities draft Regulations giving effect to these arrangements and laying down general rules for the administration of the school meals service. The draft Regulations will be accompanied by an explanatory circular. I should add that the whole cost of free milk will be borne by the Exchequer, which will also meet in full, from 1st April, 1947, the reasonable cost to authorities of supplying school dinners, after deducting the payments received from the parents.
I would like to give some indication of the growth of the school meals service in the last four years. In February, 1942, 63,000 children were taking midday meals at school. In 1946, the number was 213,000, or 28 per cent. of all the children on the school roll. Since the accelerated programme was launched in May, 1943, no fewer than 487 projects have been approved, involving the erection of kitchens with an aggregate capacity for some 210,000 meals, and dining rooms to accommodate approximately 88,000 children. Approval has also been given to a large number of adaptations of existing premises to provide kitchen, dining and scullery accommodation. When the projects already announced are completed, kitchen capacity will have reached 348,000, or about 48 per cent. of Scotland's school population. Since May, 1943, the cost of buildings and adaptations of buildings for the school meals service has been met entirely by Exchequer grant.
I would like to turn to the state of our preparations for raising the school-leaving age to 15 on 1st April, 1947. I will deal with the matter under two main heads: teachers and accommodation. Firstly, I wish to remind the Committee that the full provision of additional teachers and accommodation will not be needed in April next year. The result of raising the age will be that, after 1st April, 1947, pupils, on reaching the age of 14, or, rather, the school-leaving date following their 14th birthday—will not be free to leave school but will be required to stay for another year. Therefore, the number of pupils will increase gradually. The full effect of the higher school-leaving age will not be felt until the early Autumn of 1948. I am sure that Members who have been associated with education committee work and education authority work will agree with me in the statement I make. By that time we must aim at having our preparations complete.
The chief source of supply on which we rely for the additional teachers who will be required is the emergency training scheme, under which short courses of training are provided for men and women who have served in the Forces during the war or who have been employed in other work of national importance. I have selection boards in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen. They select suitable candidates for train -


ing, decide what courses they shall follow and how long a course is required for each student. A student taking an emergency course is eligible for an allowance to enable him or her to take advantage of the course without hardship to the student or to the parents. Slightly more than 7,000 applications have already been received for the emergency training scheme. The number so far accepted is 2,000. Of those, more than 800 have begun their training. A few have already completed it. The remaining 5,000 are accounted for as follows: 1000 have been interviewed, but decision has been deferred pending the receipt of further information; 1,000 have been found unsuitable for training; 3,000 have still to he interviewed.
Several hundreds of those awaiting interview are still serving in the Forces overseas—in Germany, the Central Mediterranean, the Middle East, India and the Far East. By arrangement with the Minister of Education and the Service Departments, two interviewing boards have been sent to each of these areas—ten boards in all—to interview the applicants both for the English and the Scottish Emergency Schemes. Each board includes a Scottish educationist, so that the interviewing of the Scottish applicants may be conducted with the assistance of full information about Scottish conditions. I should like to express my appreciation of the public spirit shown by those who have undertaken this important and onerous duty, and by the education authorities and the National Committee for the Training of Teachers, who have set them free for this work.
Already it can be said, in general, that the scheme is likely to assure the necessary supply of additional teachers for the raising of the school-leaving age This, of course, is always assuming that the married women and retired teachers will remain in the service as long as we require them. But this is not the limit of our requirements. We need still more teachers in order to bring about a much needed reduction in the size of classes. Therefore, I hope that no suitable man or woman who thinks of taking up teaching as a career will hesitate to send in his or her application. We are specially anxious to secure a large number of additional applications from women who would wish to become physical training instructors.
The next problem is to provide extra school accommodation without drawing too heavily on the limited supply of labour and materials. In some places there are unfinished school buildings, and where they can be completed on austerity lines they will make a valuable contribution towards solving the problem. For the most part, however, we shall have to make use of prefabricated huts, which will be supplied by the Ministry of Works on favorable financial terms, and will be erected by them if the education authorities so desire. I estimate that we shall require in the form of huts, for all Scotland, 800 classrooms and 750 rooms for practical work. The education authorities are at present engaged on the task of deciding exactly how many huts will be required and where they shall be placed. So far, I have received definite proposals for 343 classrooms and 347 rooms for practical work. These figures may seem a little disappointing in the light of our estimate of the total requirements, but we have to remember that a great deal of work has to be done by each education authority before definite proposals can be framed, and that once this preliminary work has been done the erection of the huts can be carried out in a comparatively short time.
The present position is that proposals for nine education areas are complete or practically complete, and for three other areas are in an advanced state. Substantial installments of their programmes have been submitted by seven authorities, and there are three areas in which no huts will be required. There remain 13 areas from which definite proposals have not yet been received. I am discussing the position in each of these areas with the authorities concerned, with a view to seeing whether there is anything I can do to expedite progress. On the whole, I think that the position is not altogether unsatisfactory, and that, with continued effort on the part of all concerned, there is good reason to hope that the requisite accommodation will be available in time. I shall shortly be asking the education authorities to prepare schemes for the provision of primary and secondary education appropriate to the age, the ability and the aptitude of the pupils and adapted to a leaving age of 15, as against the leaving age of 14 that operates at the present time. The general lines on which the schemes should


be framed are indicated in the Code and the Explanatory Memorandum which were issued as far back as 1939, and have no doubt that authorities will find further guidance in the reports of the Advisory Council, which are at present engaged—and I understand they hope to complete them in the near future—on reports on the primary schools and secondary schools. I propose now to say a few words about bursaries.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the number of prefabricated huts that are in process of erection?

Mr. Westwood: I will try to get the number before the end of the Debate.

Mr. Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that none have been erected, or are in process of the erection, in Ayrshire?
Sir W. Darling: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are over 1000 church halls in Scotland which might very reasonably be used in place of the prefabricated huts, which he is unable to supply?

Mr. Westwood: I am not aware of the exact number of church halls, but I have no reason to doubt the number of 1,000 mentioned by the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling). As to whether it would be cheaper, easier and speedier to use these halls, and whether they would provide equal accommodation, I cannot say at the moment.

Sir W. Darling: Would not they be better than non-existent huts?

Mr. Westwood: That is a matter which can be considered. I propose now to say a few words about bursaries, particularly bursaries for students at universities. This matter is of interest to all of us in view of the Scottish tradition that access to the university should be open to all who can profit by it. We are fortunate in Scotland in having many valuable educational endowments applicable to university bursaries. There are also bursaries awarded by education authorities under the bursary schemes made by them and approved in terms of the 1918 Act. It has not been the normal practice in Scotland to award State scholarships tenable at universities. It is true that, during the

war, State bursaries have been awarded in science and in oriental languages, but this was a temporary scheme to meet war needs, and it has now been discontinued.
The Advisory Council, to which I have already referred, have reviewed the question of bursaries and have presented to me a report on the subject. They recommend that there should be some State bursaries in Scotland to be awarded for special purposes, for instance, to students engaged in postgraduate research or pursuing higher education in the field of study which they followed during their undergraduate course. With this exception, they recommend that it should continue to 'be a function of the education authorities to award bursaries, including bursaries for undergraduate study at universities, but they have called my attention—I do not think it was altogether necessary, because of my experience in connection with education administration—to the inadequacy of many existing awards and to the variations between different areas, and they suggest ways in which these defects may be remedied. I propose to accept these recommendations, and I am preparing regulations which will secure that the bursaries awarded shall be of an amount sufficient to meet the needs of the students, and to enable them to pursue a course of university study without financial hardship to themselves or to their parents.

Mr. Stephen: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the provision in this respect for Scottish children will be at least equal to what has been announced by the Minister of Education for England?

Mr. Westwood: No one knows better than the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) that I do not require to give an assurance that I am not prepared to accept anything lower in the way of standards for Scotland than is provided in England. That is my aim and object and in my administration in Scotland I do all I can to see that standards are at least not lower than in England.

Mr. Stephen: What is worrying some of us in Scotland is that the grant that may be made for the Scottish people may be much less because the cost of education at, say, Oxford or Cambridge University has ' always been a, higher figure than that for Glasgow or Edinburgh. We


are hoping that in the future the young people in Scotland will get at least added grants that are as much as those given in England.

Mr. Westwood: I shall certainly keep in mind the points mentioned by the hon. Gentleman when we are framing the Regulations to which I have referred. In accordance with the procedure laid down in the Act, the education authorities will have a full opportunity for considering those Regulations in draft form, and they will be laid before Parliament as soon as they have been made; but it will not be possible to complete this procedure in time for the Regulations to apply to the awards which will be made by education authorities for the coming Session. I intend, therefore, to send a circular—this is my immediate action—to all educational authorities asking them to give special consideration to the amount of their awards for the coming year so that the needs of students may be adequately met.
In some of the existing bursary schemes in Scotland there are limits to the amount of the bursary which may be awarded, and in one or two cases the limit may be found to be too low in the light of present circumstances and conditions. I therefore propose to make a provisional Regulation, which I am empowered to do under the 1945 Act, to remove any limit of this kind and so enable the education authorities to make awards of sufficient amounts. These provisional Regulations will be made at once and will come into operation immediately. It is my intention that they shall apply only to awards to be made for the academic year 1946–47, and that before the awards for 1947–48 have to be made the new detailed Regulations to which I have already referred will be in operation. Had time permitted I should have liked to give the Committee some information about other measures which have been taken to implement the 1945 Act.

Mr. McAllister: I wonder if the Secretary of State will tell the Committee two things. I welcome his assurance that there will be no limit to the bursaries the education committees may grant, but how does he reconcile that with the fact that, in assessing a war grant for educational purposes, his Department takes the whole of a bursary into account and deducts it from the war education grant? Secondly, I would ask the Secretary of

State if, in view of the large number of young people in Scotland who are desperately anxious to get to the universities but who are going to be frustrated this year, he would take a leaf out of the book of the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) and at least suggest to the university authorities that they do everything they can to provide places in the coming academic year.

Mr. Westwood: I can assure hon. Members that, as is my practice with all Debates on Scottish Estimates, I shall tomorrow go over the points which have been made with a view to utilising the suggestions from hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Mr. Willis: In connection with the bursaries for universities, would the Secretary of State tell us whether in framing the proposals consideration has been taken of the fact that 90 per cent. of these places are earmarked for Servicemen, which already limits the accommodation available in the universities, and whether any provision is being made so that the suggestion he is now making may actually be effective?

Mr. Westwood: The point raised by my hon. Friend will be dealt with by the Under-Secretary when he winds up. I have already pointed out that I am limited in this Debate on education. could probably have taken up the whole of the time dealing with points, but there are other Members who want to take part in the Debate. Had time permitted, I should have liked to give the Committee some information about other matters, as I have indicated. Time flies on, even when a Scottish Debate is taking place in the House of Commons.

Sir W. Darling: Nothing else flies on.

Mr. Westwood: Even the hon. Member and I sometimes fly to Scotland. I should have liked to give information about other measures which have been taken to give effect to the Act of 1945 and to show the way in which the educational system is recovering from the effects of the war, but my remarks must be confined within narrow limits. I will refer only to the restoration of the written examination for the senior leaving certificate. During the war the normal arrangements for the award of the certificate had to be suspended. In their place, we instituted a


scheme for the award of a certificate on an area basis instead of a national basis, under which the formal written examination conducted by the Scottish Education Department was dispensed with. Though this emergency scheme operated to the satisfaction of other Government Departments, the Scottish Universities Entrance Board and the professional bodies by whom the certificate is accepted, a strong desire persisted for a return to the old procedure, and the restoration of the old arrangements took place at the recent examinations. I understand that it has been generally welcomed.
With regard to the measures taken to give effect to the 1945 Act, I will mention only the more important regulations that have been dealt with during recent months—standard national scales of salaries for teachers; grants for social and physical training; emergency training schemes for teachers; grants to central institutions. Among the numerous circulars which have been issued are many dealing with various provisions of the Act, such as school attendance, the school medical service, superannuation for teachers, travelling and boarding arrangements for pupils, school meals, further education, and facilities for recreation and for social and physical training. I have also asked the local education authorities to submit revised schemes for the administration of their functions relating to education, which will give effect to the provisions of the Act relating to the delegation of functions to education committees. Several draft schemes have been received and are under discussion with the education authorities themselves

Mr. Stephen: Can the Secretary of State for Scotland tell us some of the authorities who have submitted draft schemes?

Mr. Westwood: Schemes have been received from Ayrshire, Dumbarton, East Lothian, Glasgow, Lanark shire and Selkirk. The brief survey I have given will, I hope, give some idea of the task of implementing the 1945 Act and of equipping the coming generation to face the future which lies before it—a future which we cannot clearly discern, but which has great possibilities and will undoubtedly call for all the qualities of character, skill, intelligence and enterprise that we in Scotland can muster.

8.40.p.m

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: As the Secretary of State truly said a few minutes ago, time flies on, and I must express my regret at the outset to the Under-Secretary of State, who, I understand, is replying that I shall not be able to stay to hear his reply to this discussion, because trains wait for no man and I have to catch the night train to Edinburgh, as he knows, to fulfill an engagement there tomorrow.
This is the first occasion since the 1945 Act was passed into law that we have had a Debate on Scottish education. It is regrettable that it has had to be compressed and that there is no background for discussion in the shape of the Summary Report on Education which is normally issued. The last copy was for 1944, which is decidedly out of date. I suggest to the Secretary of State, therefore, that he might produce a rather fuller edition this year, incorporating the various matters which he has been unable to cover in his opening address. As the Secretary of State truly said, the 1945 Act—which, be it remembered, was the product of a Coalition, Government—marks a very notable step forward in the development of education in Scotland, and it is natural that we should all want to know what is being done under its various provisions.

Mr. Westwood: Surely it would have been fairer to say that the two Ministers who were directly responsible were Ministers who belonged to this side.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: I said " Coalition Government." After all, it was approved by the Cabinet. Moreover, I would also point out that it was actually passed into law under the Conservative Government in which the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) was Under-Secretary.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: National Government.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: I beg pardon, I meant to say National Government. There are two points on which I would like to touch which have already been mentioned by the Secretary of State. First and most important is the question of the school-leaving age and with it the associated subject of the size of classes. I was pleased to hear that the Secretary of State intends to confirm the raising of


the age on 1st April 1947, but he did not mention what his intentions were in regard to the further raising of the age to 16, which is provided for in Section 23 (3) of the Act, and I think it might be appropriate if the Under-Secretary could give us some indication of when it might be possible to raise the age to 16.
The right hon. Gentleman gave some figures in regard to teachers and accommodation in relation to the question of the school-leaving age but, frankly, I feel that probably he has been a bit optimistic in this matter. He may find that he is overloading the teachers and probably will have accommodation difficulties before he is through with this business. I am alarmed about the size of classes. It is a very real problem. When we discussed the 1945 Act on its Second Reading, Mr. Tom Johnston was Secretary of State, and I remember he said the average size of classes in Scotland as a whole was 32 pupils. I think that covered both primary and secondary classes, and he said that in the year 1942 there were some 362 classes above the maximum size. I am not sure that hon. Members at that time were entirely satisfied with Mr. Johnston's statistics, and I remember that during the passage of the Bill, the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), who is now Joint Under-Secretary of State, stated that in the West of Scotland, at any rate, 5o was by no means uncommon. I know that in Edinburgh there are certain classes also of 5o. I would therefore like to know whether there has been a substantial reduction in the numbers of pupils in the primary school classes, because I feel that the problem may become unmanageable when the age is raised unless the Secretary of State is very careful.
The next point I would like to touch upon is the question of the progress made in regard to school meals and milk. I have a proprietary interest in the 1942 Act, as I made my maiden speech on it. It was the first of the modern Acts dealing with this matter. It was amended considerably by the Fourth Schedule to the 1945 Act, and considerable progress has been made. But I suggest to the Secretary of State that he might issue another of those returns showing the percentages of meals and milk granted by the various education authorities in Scotland. The last return I have is dated February, 1945, and that is also rather

out of date. The Secretary of State mentioned that milk is now free of charge, hut that the free meals service has not yet been introduced on a universal basis. Of course, that is a complement to the cash allowances paid under the Family Allowances Act, and I trust that there will be no unreasonable delay in bringing that into being.
I attach considerable importance to this question, because, as we all know, we are faced with a very difficult food situation in these islands and if there is to be rationing of bread and other commodities, more severely than we have had in the past, it is very important that we should see that growing children get priority, particularly in milk supply. It would seem from the announcement made yesterday, or the day before, that there is likely to be a considerable cut in milk production in the coming winter, and I trust that the Scottish Education Department will see that milk is forthcoming for school children. At the same time, I hope they will see that there is no waste of milk, because I have heard rumors that it is not always used as wisely as it should be. Although I wish that children should have priority, there are other deserving sections of the community as well.
The last point on which I will speak is one with which the Secretary of State did not have time to deal, but one in which I have always taken considerable interest, and one which is of considerable importance. That is a question of the development of technical education in Scotland. I spoke on this matter in the Second Reading Debate on the 1945 Act, because I thought that the question of technical education had been passed over rather lightly in the framing of that Measure. I was very glad that my words fell on fruit ful soil because Section 2 (7, c) was in fact strengthened as regards provision of classes and colleges for technical education. I hope that in the summary the Secretary of State will issue, or on some other occasion in the very near future, he will make known what headway has been made since the passing of the 1945 Act, in the development of the technical education services.
More especially would I remind him of Command Paper 6786 which is a report on technical education produced by a Special Committee of the Advisory Council on Education and which has been pub-


lished since the passage of the 1945 Act. It is a most valuable report. As it is a fairly voluminous one, I could not this evening attempt to comment on it at any length, but I would direct the Secretary of State's attention to three particular points which I feel ought to have very close attention from the Scottish Education Department. Those are provisions for improved technical education in agriculture, mining and aeronautical engineering. In paragraph 41 there are certain recommendations about farm institutes and technical education for agricultural students. Similarly, mining is dealt with in paragraph 61, which says:
 Employers should prepare and sponsor schemes of practical training in and about the colliery to supplement and illustrate the instruction given at local technical colleges and central institutions.
As the Committee are aware, a Bill dealing with the public ownership of the coal industry is now in another place and therefore soon there will no longer be any private employers. It is therefore up to the State to implement this recommendation. I hope the Secretary of State will pay. particular attention to this point, having regard to the importance of improving education in mining matters. I have mentioned these two subjects, agriculture and mining, for two good reasons. The people of this country must depend in these days to an ever-increasing extent on increased home food production, and the general prosperity of the nation must depend on the production of coal. I have also singled out aeronautical engineering for particular mention. I think it is an industry which we ought to try to develop in Scotland. We are much interested in aviation matters. A recommendation of the Technical Committee's Report is that
 A special technical college for aeronautics should be established at or near Prestwick. It should be recognised eventually as a central institution.
I commend that recommendation to the Secretary of State. I feel that there should be a future for civil aviation, and the aircraft industry in Scotland some day, though taking the short view, I am a little pessimistic, having regard to the somewhat cramping and restrictive nature of the present Government's Civil Aviation Bill.
We have always had in the past, in Scotland, a reputation for craftsmanship

and quality, whether it be for engineering on the Clyde, Forth or Tay, or whether it be in the cultivation of land. I think it was Ian Hay who remarked in one of his novels that all Cabinet Ministers, journalists, ships' engineers and gardeners were scotsmen—perhaps a rather sweeping generalisation and certainly not correct, so far as the present Government is concerned, in regard to Cabinet Ministers. But there are a great many ships' engineers and gardeners who are Scotsmen. However, we cannot live on past memories. We have to keep up to date, and it is for that reason that I urge the Secretary of State and the Scottish Education Department to pay great attention to the development of technical education throughout the length and breadth of Scotland.

8.53 P.m.

Miss Herbison: I wish to deal first with an educational point which was raised during the first part of today's Debate. The Secretary of State was wondering how he could get people from the towns to become farm workers,, and an hon. Gentleman on the other side said, "Tell the teachers."I hope we shall never see the day in Scotland when one of the many duties of the teacher will be to condition a boy or girl for the job he or she is to do in the future. It reminds me far too much of that book by H. G. Wells, " Brave New World."

Sir W. Darling: It was written by Aldous Huxley, not Wells.

Miss Herbison: I thank the hon. Member for the correction, but the point about conditioning still remains. One point in particular with which I agreed wholeheartedly was that dealing with the provision of milk and meals free of charge. When one has had experience of teaching in a school where some children received milk free and others paid for it, where the odd child was considered a necessitous child who should have a free meal and where every child in class knew those children who were getting free milk and those who were paying for milk, one always felt that what those children gained physically from the free meals and free milk, they lost socially. From the very beginning of their lives they were made to feel different from the others in their class.
I wish to know what steps the present Government intend to take in education


to show that there was a real change of Government in July, 1945. The right hon. Gentleman, when he was talking about the plans for organising schools and for the raising of the school-leaving age, said that they were going to take into consideration the ability and aptitude of the children. My right hon. Friend would not have that difficulty at all at 11 plus if he followed what we on this side of the House have always agreed to in conference, that there should be no division, no segregation at the age of 11 plus, but until the school-leaving age of 15 there should be the common school. If the Secretary of State for Scotland would give a directive to those education authorities who have to plan new schools for the raising of the school age and suggest to them that wherever possible there should be the common school, then we would be going a very long way towards giving equality of opportunity to every boy and girl in Scotland. We have felt always that 11 plus was far too young. We have been against conditioning or training for jobs at an early age. The way to avoid that is by introducing the common school into our educational system wherever possible.
University grants have also been dealt with. These grants have to be increased considerably, I should like the Under-Secretary, when he is replying, to assure me that those grants will be given to every Scottish boy and girl who needs one and who obtains a higher leaving certificate and entrance to the university. There has been a suggestion that the additional grants, or these very big grants, are to be given only to the boy or girl of exceptional ability. It seems to me if we set the grade in a higher leaving certificate examination and the certificate of fitness is given to a boy or girl, then they have reached the standard that fits them for a university training and they have every right to the biggest grant which it is possible to give them. If we do not do that we are not going to get something for which we have always pleaded—equality of opportunity. A child, provided he comes from a home where there is money and provided he can get his higher leaving certificate examination and his certificate of fitness, will be able to go to the university. If there is any differentiation in grant between the exceptionally bright boy and the boy gets

a certificate, it will be a very bad thing indeed—

Sir W. Darling: Not at all.

Miss Herbison: That may be the hon. Gentleman's point of view but if the question is examined carefully it will be found there is a differentiation. I wish to mention another point which I raised with the Secretary of State previously. There has been published this year the Report of the Advisory Council on the Training of Teachers. A great many people in Scotland are very worried about this Report. In it it is suggested, as the finding of this Council. that non-graduation for women is to be allowed. Not only is non-graduation for women to be allowed, but we are taking a step backward to allow non-graduation for men, which is something that had been cleared out of the Scottish Educational system.
The Educational Institute of Scotland have had for their policy for many years graduation for men and women. They obtained it for men, and they have urged it for women, and yet this Report of the Advisory Council accepts non-graduation for men as well as for women. Where are those people who have the lower qualifications going to be employed? It seems to me that, in many instances, they are going to be employed in the first three years of the post qualifying stage so that those boys and girls who leave school at 15 are going to be taught by people with lesser qualifications than those boys and girls who are going to continue after 15. That is a very bad thing, and it seems to me that the younger boys and girls who are going to leave at 15 should, during the time they are at school, have the benefit of the best trained teachers whom they can have. It has been argued often that it does not necessarily mean that a person is a good teacher because he or she is a graduate, but I insist that this policy is backed up by the non-graduate women in Scotland, and there are many reasons for it. If a non-graduate person is a good teacher, I suggest that she would have been an even better teacher if she had been a graduate.
There is another point that worries me considerably. If we are to have equality of opportunity in education, there must not be any financial worry on the part of the parents. The family allowance of 5s. will help considerably, but, imme-


diately a boy or girl reaches 16 years of age, or on 31st July, after the 16th birthday, that first 5s. is lost. Can the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary give me any information on what maintenance grant might be given to enable boys or girls to stay at school after 16 years of age?
Regarding the emergency training scheme, I know that the teachers in Scotland welcome these men and women who are becoming teachers under this scheme. Teachers in Scotland have always had the welfare of children at heart. They want the school leaving age raised and they want the classes lowered, and because of that, they want a great many more teachers in the profession, but there is another question which I am quite certain they would ask. Has the Secretary of State formulated any plan whatever to see that these men and women who come in under an emergency scheme will, in a certain number of years, either through having extra time off in the summer or by means of correspondence classes, whichever way is the better, be able to secure the academic qualifications that were necessary for teachers in prewar years? I want to know also what salaries these people who are coming into the profession in this way are going to receive. I think that, if they are coming in like this, they must have the same salary as fully trained and fully qualified teachers have today.
I have covered all the points I wanted to make except one We are told that there is to be an increase over the 1945 Estimate of £2 million. We have been told how much of that money is going to be spent on various projects. I could not get different figures for Scotland, though I got them for England and Wales, and it seems to me that there was a very great increase in the English Estimates in the money that was being given to independent schools. Is that happening in Scotland? If it is, I consider it very wrong indeed. Our policy, again, is a policy that will give to every boy and girl the same chances. Are we using this extra £2 million to ensure that equality? In spite of all the points I have made, I am absolutely certain that the present Secretary of State for Scotland and his Under-Secretary will do a very good job of work to ensure that Scottish education attains a very high level. We

on this side are sure of that, and we wish them the very best in the very difficult job that is facing them today.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I am very glad that an opportunity, however brief, has been afforded us to discuss education in Scotland. We are concerned here, and we may as well face the fact, with one of the biggest and most important tasks confronting this generation. For Scotland, with its special traditions in this matter, education is, indeed, one of the great and lasting issues, and it would have been a serious dereliction of duty if we had not, during this first Session of peace, directed our minds to this particular problem£the education of the youth of Scotland. Therefore, it is a good thing that the Opposition selected this Vote even though it may have curtailed several of the hon. Members who wished to deal further with agriculture.
For long years before the war, Scotland claimed that it had the best educated citizens in the world. For a long period that claim was justified. We had a better system, and there is no doubt that our results outshone those of other countries. Above all, Scotland's heart was in this business. For our fathers education was almost a religion; there was a spiritual urge behind it which drove them to supreme efforts, sometimes even to sacrifice, in order to achieve the cultured mind. I am not sure that today we can any longer justify that proud claim. Others have come abreast of us and some have even passed us in the race. That is a call for new enthusiasm, even if it is only to keep our place; but, apart altogether from the competitive urge, there is the whole mighty convulsion of the war to arrest attention in this field.
It is true to say that in no direction has the late war worked such havoc as upon men's thoughts. Old conceptions that once seemed sacrosanct have been swept aside; new ideas surge everywhere. There is a yearning after a new philosophy of life throughout the country, a philosophy that will bring peace to the mind and satisfaction to the soul. It is the function of education to serve those great present needs of men. There are other considerations no less stirring. We have learned from the past tumultuous decade that democracy, the liberal way of life that we cherish in this land and to which, I hope,


we shall remain committed for a long time yet, is a blessing not handed to us by Heaven to be enjoyed without effort. The terrible years through which we have lived have taught us that democracy has to be fought for and defended with all the strength we have, and that in that fight every man and woman has his or her individual contribution to make. Without that contribution the whole fabric of freedom might well collapse.
The first requirement of a vigorous democracy is a well educated people, that can distinguish truth from falsehood, a people equipped to penetrate the mirage of propaganda and of sophistry and to reach conclusions by their own well trained judgment. In the period that lies ahead—and it may be a very troubled period—as the Secretary of State said in his concluding remarks, we shall need all the wisdom, judgment and good sense that we can command. For those reasons, it seems to me that a high duty rests upon this Parliament to ensure that youth is provided with the richest, fullest, most generous and most liberal education with which we can provide it. It is in that spirit that I approach these Estimates.
It is a pity there is no time to dwell further in these high altitudes, because sometimes Parliament ought to think of the higher principles involved in education and take its mind away from the little details, important as they are, for, after all, they are only details. We in this House are very often inclined to be cluttered up with so much detail that we altogether lose the great principles which ought. to illuminate all our work.
The Secretary of State made reference to a number of rather important matters, and I would like to take him up on various points. I was very glad to hear that the number of potential teachers coming forward in the emergency training scheme is so good. My information is that the single category in which there is a shortage of entrants is that of women for physical training. It is very odd that that should be so, because before the war that was regarded as a very attractive career for young women, and I would be interested to know from the Under Secretary what the Department is doing to find out the causes of this reluctance. It ought not to be.

Mr. Gilzean: They finish at 40.

Mr. Stewart: No doubt, but there are 20 years of very interesting life beforehand. The Secretary of State told us nothing about the quality of the entrants in the emergency training scheme. I submit that that is a very important matter. Am I right in saying that three-quarters of the entrants for primary schools possess the leaving certificate or its equivalent? If so, it means, does it not, that these potential teachers for primary schools under this temporary scheme have reached as high a standard as, if not a higher standard than, that reached by primary school teachers in prewar days.

Mr. Rankin: No.

Mr. Stewart: I am asking a question of the Under-Secretary. I am asking if that is so. That is my information, and I would be interested to know whether it is true. I believe the emergency scheme in Scotland has far exceeded the achievements of the scheme in England. We have more people in it. We have a higher quality entrant, and that says a great deal for Scottish education of the past, and for the spirit moving the young men and women at this present time. I do not find myself in such warm agreement with the right hon. Gentleman with regard to accommodation. I think he takes an altogether too optimistic view of this matter.

Mr. Rankin: I would like to point out that applicants for the Scottish scheme are being referred to the English scheme on the ground that it is easier to get in there, and actually there are more applicants for the English scheme and more are being accepted than in Scotland.

Mr. Stewart: I think the hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. Would he like me to give him the figures as they were given to me? I understand the total for applications received for Scotland is about 7,000; in England it is 57,000. That proportion for Scotland is as good as for England. The number of students in training are, 800 in Scotland and 3,000 in England; a much bigger proportion in Scotland than in England. Therefore, I am entitled to claim that the' scheme in Scotland is going much better than the scheme in England. I am sorry to think that the hon. Member opposite should be unwilling to associate himself with that very justifiable claim.
With regard to accommodation, I am bound to say that unless drastic steps are taken quickly to provide additional school buildings, we shall soon find ourselves with more teachers than we can find work for. In fact, that has already happened in one case, in regard to handiwork teachers. I am told there are some handiwork teachers idle at the present moment. Many of them are coming out of the Services, trained and partly trained; and if there are added to those the numbers who are to be trained under this scheme, I am satisfied we shall have more than we can find work for. The difficulty of accommodation is the most acute of all the problems facing us. A mere glance at the facts will prove that.
The Secretary of State reminded us that the school-leaving age is to be raised in April of next year. The full effect of that will not be felt for a few months; he said it would not be felt until the autumn of 1948. Surely that is not correct. I am informed by those who understand these matters in Scotland, that a large part of the effect will be felt noticeably in September of next year. I think that must he obvious if one thinks about it for a moment. In September of next year all those new pupils, who from April onwards would have left school, will come on to the new register. In Fife, the estimated figure for September, 1947, is 1,500. If that is so in Fife, the figure must be a great deal larger throughout the country. To provide for those 1,50o in Fife a year hence, 19 additional huts are wanted as classrooms, and are on first priority. In one school, the Bell Baxter in Cupar, five are needed; in another school, six
new huts are needed. In the whole county, 60 additional huts are wanted before the additional requirements imposed by the raising of the school-leaving age are completely met. The Fife County Council Education Authority have provided the Department with all the schedules for the priority huts. Moreover, the Ministry of Works' representative has been to Fife and vetted the various schemes on the spot. Despite all that, though the visit of the Ministry of Works' representative took place so long ago as February of this year, not one brick has been laid anywhere. An hon. Member said earlier that in Ayrshire not one brick has been laid.
September of next year is the zero hour in this matter. I invite the Committee and the country to realise that we are facing a serious situation. I believe that Fife was the first county in Scotland to present the schedules for these new huts. If what I have said of Fife is true and nothing is done, what can be the position in other parts of the country? The delay must be deplorable throughout Scotland. If that is so, we are truly in a difficult situation. The Secretary of State must make up his mind in this matter. He is faced with two alternatives. Either he must satisfy himself and the education authorities that the necessary additional buildings will be erected within the next 12 months, which will mean he will have to take drastic steps in handling the Ministry of Works, who are responsible for this matter, and he must cut away all red tape; or he will have to postpone the raising of the school-leaving age. I hope he will not adopt the further dreadful and escape alternative, of raising the numbers in the classes.
For my part, I would regret, with all my heart, the postponing of the raising of the school-leaving age. I deeply believe the raising of the school-leaving age is necessary. I know to postpone it would cause the greatest unrest and difficulty among the education authorities; it would upset all their present plans. But the Secretary of State must do one b thin,' or the other. And he must do it quickly, because the education authorities now are in a state
of complete uncertainty. They do not think the huts are going to be put up in time, so they cannot plan ahead. If they were assured they were not to be put up, and that the raising of the school leaving age were to be postponed, they could, at least, make one set of plans; but at the moment they know nothing. I do urge the Secretary of State to realise that the education authorities do need guidance on this matter, and that a decision cannot be long delayed.
Another matter that is causing people in my part of the country, and in other agricultural parts, a great deal of anxiety, an educational matter with an agricultural aspect, is that of the children and the potato lifting. Last year the Secretary of State urged schoolchildren to undertake potato lifting, and in Fife the school organizations caused 85 per cent. of the total crop to be-lifted in the first fortnight. That was a splendid achievement, made


possible by the fact that some 2,000 children were added to the Fife contingent from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Lanark shire. This year the Secretary of State has again urged that schoolchildren should lend a hand. In his own circular
No. 15 of 1946 he says:
This year the potato crop cannot be recovered without the help of schoolchildren.
Fife education authorities are requested to lend the maximum assistance, but this year the Secretary of State has said, " No billeting." What does that mean? I am speaking on behalf of the education of Fife children. If that means that school children who helped us last year are not going to help us this year, it means that a much bigger and an unfair burden is to fall upon the Fife children, and that the burden on them this year will be greater than it was before.
We were told a few minutes ago that last year there were 41,000 children who helped in potato lifting, and that this year we probably shall have only 23,000. Unless the Secretary of State can give an assurance that the difference is to be made up by additional prisoner of war labour or adult labour, which he says he cannot do, an additional burden will be placed on the children of the agricultural areas. He introduced recently the external leaving certificate examination that requires all children to undertake further study and greater strain, and the fact that Fife brains have got to break their studies for this essentially national work puts them under a disability that is not shared by other children. If this potato lifting is a national service—and I agree that it is vital to the community, why must the exercise of that duty be left only to the rural children? Why does not the Secretary of State take courage in his hands and call upon the children of the schools of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Lanark shire for this national duty, and say that all children should bear an equal part. I regard it as an unfair arrangement at the present time. I protest against its being so. I should have liked to say more on this subject, but time is pressing us hard.
May I refer to one other matter? The Advisory Council on Education, to which reference has been made today, is reaching the end of its term of office. I am a member, as the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State was, of that body, and as was another hon. Member of this

House. I appreciate that it is not, perhaps, very easy, being a member, to speak with detachment about their labours; but, like that of the Under-Secretary when he was a member, my contribution has been somewhat spasmodic, and, therefore, I do feel I can stand apart a little, and say something about the Council. I have never worked with a body of men and women who have laboured more strenuously, more loyally, or in a more public spirited way in the national interest; and I hope that before their term of office ends the Secretary of State will take a proper opportunity to express publicly the great debt of gratitude which the country owes them.

9.25

Mr. Gilzean: I am glad to have an opportunity to take part in this Debate, because I have had some little experience of educational administration. One of the last jobs with which I was associated before I came to the House, was the vetting of candidates who wanted to enter the teaching profession through an unusual route. There were a great many of them who were totally unfitted for the course they proposed to take and consequently had to be rejected, but I am sure that in the end there will be many good teachers coming from this source. We have to remember that teaching is not altogether a question of the type of education you' have received, but is largely a question of education plus aptitude. Unfortunately, there are a great many people in the teaching profession who have no flair for teaching. I wish to direct the attention of the Committee to a question which has always perturbed me, to which I think the Government should pay attention. I will read to the Committee an extract from a form of will, which states:
 We chairge the consciences of the Elect in the Lord that they chuse no Burgos children, if their parents be will and sufficiently able to maintaine thame, since the intention of the Founder is on lie to relieve the pure.
In my city there are many educational benefactions, and these benefactions are being entirely misdirected. They do not go to the poor, but to the children of the successful local joiner, baker, grocer or someone of that ilk, and in my opinion the time has come when these benefactions should be redirected.
We hear a great deal about the working class struggling to give their children an educational opportunity, and wanting to send them to the university and all that sort of thing. That seems to me to be a most unfortunate course to take, because in the end, all the jobs which are worth while go to the children who have managed to get the help of the patrimony of the poor. There is undoubtedly a complete misdirection of the money which has been left for the purposes of education for the poor, with the result that the working man and woman, who are ambitious for the well being of their children, are left with the only course of sending them to the university, with the result that very often there are lots of people possessed of degrees and possessed of nothing else. It would appear a good thing for the Secretary of State, and those associated with him, to give attention to this question of how these benefactions can be redirected so that they are used to the best advantage.
I am completely in favour of raising the school-leaving age to 15. There is not the least doubt that this is very necessary, because out of our schools is coming a constant stream of children whose education leaves a great deal to be desired. Consequently, I think that the only way in which we can hope to remedy this is by increasing the age to 15. I agree that it is not going to be easy to do that at this time, because of the fact that we have just finished this terrible war, and everything is upset, but we ought, in spite of that, to direct our attention to that end. Unless we can get people with a reasonable education, then we are going to lose the race for world markets and for the redevelopment of our country. I do not care whether we use huts or how it is done so long as we keep the children at school. I think that we ought to seek to educate them along lines that will make them good tradesmen and craftsmen rather than this constant urge to get something in the way of a university degree.

Sir Patrick Hannon: The hon. Gentleman spoke about the poor. What, precisely, does he mean by "The poor "? I always understood, having given a great deal of attention in my younger days to Scottish education, that it stood alone in the education of the mass of the people, as

against any other part of the British Empire. What does he mean by poor? Is not Scottish education available to everybody?

Mr. Gilzean: What I inferred was the fact that money was left to a section of the community, and, in the process of time, that money has been misdirected to the interests of a section of the community for whom it was never intended. That has happened all over the place.

Sir W. Darling: Will the hon. Gentleman say where that has happened? Will he name one institution where it has happened?

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): The hon. Member cannot intervene, unless the hon. Member who is speaking gives way.

Mr. Gilzean: I am quite willing to tell the hon. Gentleman, but I would prefer not to; but since the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) has asked me, I have to point out that the benefaction of George Heriot was left to the poor, and, at the present time, the greater part of the interest on that money goes to the children of small tradesmen or professional men—lawyers, doctors and people like that—and so I am justified in saying that. Shall I read to the hon. Member about Fettes—

Sir W. Darling: Would the hon. Gentleman care to say when these benefits came into being; and does he seek to compare the educational standards of the fifteenth century, with those of the twentieth century?

Mr. Gilzean: I think that is quite outside the question. The broad fact remains that a man left £23,000, and, today, that £23,000 has a capital value of somewhere near £1,000,000.

Sir W. Darling: The capitalist system, made it possible.

Mr. Gilzean: If the hon. Gentleman. will make stupid remarks, I cannot help. it. I can prove beyond a cavil that the great bulk of the income from that £1,000,000, which amounts to £32,00o a. year, goes to fee-paying scholars and not to foundation scholars. That can be. proved beyond any doubt. What was left of the money was for fatherless. children, and it has been used to set up big schools so that people can come here-


and shine as undoubtedly they are entitled to shine as the result of these benefactions. It is the same old story all over Scotland. Hon. Members can get the details in the Library in the Report of the Endowments Commission. I think the year was 1853 but I am not sure. In that Endowments Commission Report hon. Members will find exactly what happened to all that money.
In any case my one interest is this, that the working class should get a chance of becoming better educated. At the present time there is a bar beyond a certain point. There is difficulty for the average working class boy or girl to get an education, and where they get that education very often it is not much use to them because of a prejudice that is associated with the opportunity of getting something well worth while. That is why I say I do hope now that we have got a Labour administration that it will turn its attention to the way in which education endowments are used, and, that consequently, we will see a better system in the future.

9.36.p.m

Mr. J. S. C. Reid: The time is so short, that I do not feel I could spare the necessary time to controvert the hon. Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. Gilzean), and, therefore, I pass to one or two points which are all I have time to deal with. I think it is trite but none the less to be repeated that, in education as in other things, we are today at the beginning of a new period which will, in the next year or two, have an immense influence on the lives of the next generation. We all agree that public opinion is very strong and very salutary, but public opinion must be founded upon information. It is impossible even if we had a whole day to debate education, to cover all the issues which ought to be ventilated. Therefore, I emphasis what was said by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Edinburgh (Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison) that we must this year have a full and comprehensive report about the present position in education.
I know the difficulties that existed during the war in getting out any kind of document, but even at the expense of a few more weeks' delay, I suggest that we ought to have this year a comprehensive and really informative report from

the right hon. Gentleman's Department. It is important that, we should know all about the steps about which we have not yet heard. I cannot complain that during the war reports tended to be merely statistical abstracts, or that anything of an educational character was barred in these reports, except an occasional sentence here and there. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to devote the major part of his report to education proper and not to sidelines which deal only with statistical matters. We do want to know something, far example, about the way in which the curriculum is going to work if the school age is extended to 15. We do want to know how the balance is to be drawn. I know it is not entirely the responsibility of the Department, but we want to know how the balance is going to be drawn between general and technical subjects, because we must remember that education is not merely to enable people to earn a living. Education is not merely to enable them to plan their leisure without getting into trouble; the purpose of Scottish education, primarily, is to develop sturdy, independent thought and character, all the more necessary today because this is an era of mass suggestion. Wherever that mass suggestion operates, I hope it will never operate in Scotland. Therefore, we want to know something about the quality of education. I agree with the hon. Lady the Member for North Lanark (Miss Herbison) that quality is of vital importance. We must have information, for instance, about the size of classes. I agree with the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Stewart) that if there is any doubt at all about the possibility of raising the school-leaving age, without increasing the size of classes and decreasing the quality of teachers, it would be far better to postpone it than to sacrifice quality for quantity.
I was a little disturbed at the guarded expressions of the Secretary of State—that the scheme will provide enough teachers if none of the married women leave, and that there is good hope for accommodation becoming available. I suggest that during the coming months, the right hon. Gentleman should apply his mind to this matter, and see whether he can give a guarantee that there will be no sacrifice of quality if he raises the school-leaving age next year. We are all committed to it, and we want to do it next


year if possible. But do not introduce it into an atmosphere where people will be against it, because the immediate result will be a decrease in quality. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, if it becomes necessary, would do far better in the interests of Scottish education by postponing it, than by sacrificing quality, because it would be very difficult to get that quality back. Many think that a rise in, or even the maintenance of, the present position with regard to the size of classes will do no good to Scottish education. I am inclined to put this high in the list of things to be cured, even higher than the raising of the school-leaving age. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will concentrate all his forces on the ordinary education which applies to everybody throughout the school system, and will not mind if he has to postpone for a considerable time some of the sidelines which we introduced or amplified in the Act of last year. They must come, they ought to come, but their provision should not interfere with the maintenance and improvement of the general trend of education, which is even more important.
One final word, about finance I know it is unusual to discuss finance at all when we are discussing Estimates, such has been the transformation of procedure in this Committee. Since 1937, the Government grant has doubled, all to the good. We do not know what has happened to the rates, but we know that from 1937 to 1944 they went up by £2 million. I suspect that they have gone up a great deal more, and I hope we shall get the figure. The right hon. Gentleman hardly needs to be warned that if he is not careful local education authorities will not be able to achieve proper results, through lack of finance, because there is a limit to what can be raised by rates. Already, that has happened in one respect. The sight hon. Gentleman will have seen the report on technical education which, on page 76, states that where the Ministry of Labour are able to give 100 per cent. Government money to the provision of Government training centers, those centers are very much better, according to this Report, than the institutions which have to be aided out of the rates. That is already beginning, and if he is not very careful it will become worse. We have a yardstick here to measure what can be done when the Government assume fur-

there responsibilities of a financial character. Unless the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to look again at this subject of finance we shall have a very serious slowing down of educational progress in Scotland.

9.45.P.M

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Thomas Fraser): I cannot give the right hon. and learned Gentleman the figures for which he asks, but let me say at the outset that he must be very well aware that this question of finance for education, in so far as it affects the local authorities, is part of a much larger problem. There are many other Measures, which have been passed or are being passed through this. House, which will relieve the local authorities of much of their responsibility. We have said repeatedly that we are looking afresh at the relative responsibilities of the central Government and of the local authorities for finding finance for services for which they are jointly responsible. With regard to the report which has been asked for—my speech must be a series of answers to questions that have been put to me—my right hon. Friend is most sympathetic. He wants to get out the report as soon as conditions permit, and in doing so, he will endeavour to give the fullest information.

Mr. Reid: My point was that I would rather have delay and a really full report than have it hurried on and sketchy.

Mr. Fraser: I appreciate that. What I really meant by hurrying it on was that my right hon. Friend wants to start the production of the report at the earliest possible moment, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows some of the difficulties which are in the way nowadays of producing a report. My right hon. Friend will endeavour to give the fullest information possible.
With regard to the potato lifting to which reference has been made, we were violently criticised for abandoning billeting this year, and it was said that the children from Glasgow, Edinburgh and other cities would not be able to go and help in the countryside this year. Really, the hon. Gentleman got the whole picture out of proportion. I said in an earlier discussion this afternoon that last year some 41,000 children were engaged in potato lifting. The Committee may be


interested to know that some 4,000 of those were billeted. Some 6,000 travelled daily from the towns to the countryside. We expected that transport for the children might be a little more easy this year, and so we made an appeal to the cities, as we have been doing during the war years, to make their contribution. We shall endeavour to transport their children daily to the potato areas, because they complained about the billeting arrangements in the war years. Only 4,000 were billeted, while 6,000 were transported daily, and we believe that transport facilities this year will be such that we shall be able readily to transport all the children who will be made available by the education authorities in the cities. I went to each of the four cities and addressed the education authorities and made my appeal to them, and two of the cities have agreed to assist again this year. No doubt very large numbers of children
will be transported from those cities to work in the potato areas.
With regard to the emergency training scheme for teachers, it is a success. My right hon. Friend is well satisfied with the response. He is also well satisfied with the quality of the would-be teachers who are coming forward. I am afraid that, as he said himself earlier this evening, the categories of which we are most short among the would-be teachers is that of women for physical training instructors' courses. I cannot give all the details. There were certain interjections when an hon. Member was speaking on the subject, and it may be that some of the interjectors were not far off the mark in giving a reason for women not coming forward for that job.
An hon. Member made an interesting contribution on the question of training for citizenship. Again there were interjections. I think the Committee generally appreciated some of the things he said about our education in this country. I think the hon. Member knows, as he must as signatory to the report which my right hon. Friend received from the Advisory Council on training for citizenship, that the Advisory Council made a strong recommendation in favour of there being a period of active experiment by schools, to ascertain what might be the most effective methods of training for citizenship. Many schools have carried out experiments. We have sent for reports. Examination of the reports shows

that, in a majority of the schools, praiseworthy efforts are being made to train children to become good citizens. Many experiments are being conducted. Indeed, the experiments range from the relatively humble attempts of individual schools, to the ambitious schemes like that adopted by Glasgow corporation for the production, at a cost of about £10,000, of sets of films, posters and other visual material, designed to interest children in the civic life of the City. There are the more common experiments of the house and prefect, and many monitor systems of delegation of responsibility to pupils. There is the other experiment of educating the children by holding mock town councils or mock Parliaments, and so on. In a large number of schools a measure of self-government by the pupils has been introduced, with varying degrees of success.
The hon. Member for North Lanark (Miss Herbison) asked me about grants. She referred to grants to independent schools. We make no grants, of course, to independent schools, in the sense in which that term is used in the Statute, but grants are paid to a limited number of schools which are not, however, under the control of education authorities. The number of such schools is, as the Committee know, very much less in Scotland than in England and Wales.

Miss Herbison: Will the Minister tell me whether the grants that are paid to those schools have been increased?

Mr. Fraser: Yes, the grant has been increased to all the schools; it has to be increased, along with the grants to the education authorities, if we are to continue to maintain such schools. The question of university accommodation was raised. This is not a matter for my right hon. Friend, but is one for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In discussing the general question of accommodation, it was suggested that we should make use of church halls instead of putting the children into prefabricated huts. I am afraid the position at the moment is that we are being very hard pressed by the Church of Scotland to release church halls which are being used for this and other purposes, and there is no prospect of our getting, for the purpose of education, the very large number of church halls referred to by the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling).

Sir W. Darling: Try again, or let me try.

Mr. Fraser: Much was said about the programme of prefabricated huts. Let me say straight away that we are not very happy about the progress that has been made in this matter. It is not, however, just a question of the Ministry of Works or some other Government Department holding up progress. It is, in the first place, a fact that the education authorities do not like the prefabricated huts. They do not want them, they would rather not have them; and many of the authorities are very slow in coming forward with their proposals, and we are pressing them. We all know that education authorities and their officials are very busy dealing with other matters. Many have come forward, many are still coming forward,
and I have no doubt that many more will be coming forward as a result of what the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) had to say this evening. We want about 2,000 additional rooms for the raising of the school-leaving age. At the moment we have proposals covering the erection of 759 rooms. Those are the submissions made at the present time by the education authorities. The majority of those submissions are being examined by the technical officers of the Ministry of Works, and 100 of them have reached the stage at which tenders may be called for. It is true that in Ayrshire and Fife shire no huts have yet been constructed, but no huts have yet been constructed in any part of the country. They are, however, simple prefabricated huts, and when the work of construction begins, it should not take very long to complete.
I was asked about priority milk for schools in the circumstances of the supply of milk being less in the coining winter. I can give an assurance that everything possible will be done to secure the necessary supply for the schoolchildren. With regard to technical education, the importance of this is fully recognised, but nobody would expect my right hon. Friend to pronounce at this moment on what he will do, when he has received the Report of the Special Committee on Technical Education so very recently. The reduction in the size of classes, of course, is another matter to which my right hon. Friend attaches very much importance. He will strive to get the accommodation

and teachers to reduce the size of classes at the earliest possible moment. He has to concentrate first on the raising of the school-leaving age. I am sure that we will succeed in providing accommodation and teachers for the raising of the school-leaving age without making the classes any bigger than they are at the moment. We would be very sad if we had to contemplate increasing the size of classes in order to raise the school-leaving age. We very much hope, and are very sure, that will not take place. We will strive, therefore, to provide all the accommodation and teachers necessary to raise the school-leaving age on the date on which we said we could do so. Beyond that, we will strive to provide the accommodation and the teachers—

It being Ten o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

FOOD (POINTS RATIONING) ORDER

10.1.P.M

Sir John Mellor (Sutton Coldfield): I beg to move,
That the Order, dated 21st May, 1946, amending the Food (Points Rationing) Order, 1945 (S.R. &amp; EX, 1946, No. 733), a copy of which amending Order was presented on 27th May, be annulled.
My complaint about this Order is that it is extremely confusing, and confusing upon a subject which ought to be made extremely simple, as it is the direct concern of almost everyone in this country. I do not think I need enlarge upon the actual contents of the Order to any wide extent, because my purpose tonight is to attack the form rather than the merits of the matter. I might just mention that the Order is concerned with points for canned meats, canned salmon, canned macaroni, certain kinds of biscuits, and a variety of other commodities. This Order No. 733 amends Order No. 891 of 1945, as amended. If one looks at the Order, one finds that the words " as amended " have a very extensive significance, because on referring to the note at the bottom of the Order, one finds that Order No. 891 was amended no fewer than six times in 1945 and four times in 1946, so that this is the twelfth Order dealing with this subject, and it is neces-


sary to consider these various amending Orders one by one and as a whole to understand what the present position is.
Order No. 733, which is the subject of this Motion, does a number of things, but perhaps its principal function is to substitute a new part I in the second schedule of Order No. 891, as amended If hon. Members will turn to the second and third pages of Order No 733, they will find a new schedule, and they will see that it contains a mass of intricate details, but no clue is given, except possibly in the very much oversimplified Explanatory Note, as to what changes are created by this new schedule. As far as I can see, it will be necessary for anyone to examine this new schedule with the original Order No. 891 and all the intervening amendments in order to appreciate whether a change has been made or not, and why. What people want to know when a new Order is issued is what change it makes. It would be perfectly simple when a new schedule like this is issued for the items which involve a change to be marked in italics or distinguished by an asterisk, or something of that kind. But the only way we can really investigate this position is to go back to Order No. 891 and work forward.
Order No. 891 is not itself the principal one. One has to go further back for that —to Order No. 861—but starting with No. 891, so as not to have to go too far back into history, we find that the second schedule, which contains the thread in this tangled skein which I am trying to follow this evening, is a lengthy one. It contains no fewer than 13 parts, and begins on page 6 and goes on to page 14. There we have what I suppose must be regarded as the basic schedule. Proceeding forward from 2oth July, 1945, when Order No. 891 was made, we come to Order No. 1048, which was made about a month later. That again deals with canned meat and some of the things with which No. 733 is concerned. So also does a further Order, No. 1138, made about a month later still. Then we have Order No. 1261 which deals with spaghetti. This Order 1261 deals with spaghetti, but I think No. 733 only deals with macaroni, and I am not sure whether the two commodities are sufficiently approximate for the one Order to affect the other. We have a further amending Order, No. 1047, issued in November of last year, but as far as I can see this

does not in any way have any bearing on the contents of No. 733, so I will pass it by. On the other hand, Order No. 1514, which was made on 4th December, does. There again there is a further readjustment of the points value of certain canned meat. That brings us up to the ill-fated Order No. 1682 of 1945, which has already been brought to your notice, Mr. Speaker.
Number 1682 makes a sort of halfhearted attempt at consolidation, and the point of this Motion tonight is to say that there ought to be much more readiness to consolidate these Orders at frequent intervals so that the public can appreciate entirely what the position is. Order 1682, as I say, makes a half-hearted attempt at consolidation because it provides not only a new part but a new schedule in place of the second schedule to Order 891. I cannot understand why, having gone so far, the Minister did not go further and make a new Order altogether, so that we could start from scratch again. It would have been quite easy because, as it is, this new schedule takes up nine pages, and the original Order 891 took up only 14, so that it would involve no serious increase in the use of paper if he had gone the whole way and made a new Order, and it would have been an enormous improvement in the intelligibility of the Order. When I say that these Orders should be frequently consolidated, it is only subject to this: that, in consolidating, the Ministry would always distinguish either by italics or by an asterisk those items in which there has been a change; otherwise, consolidation might make some more confusion. However, if they will be careful to distinguish those items where there has been a change, then the more consolidation we have and the more frequently we have it, the better.
If anyone now obtains a copy of 1682 through the Stationery Office or the Food Office or otherwise, they will receive an Order marked " corrected reprint."If they will look at that document which. as I say, contains nine pages of considerable detail, they will find no indication as to where the correction lies. The only way in which they can find this is by comparing it with the original copy which was issued and of which this is a correction. Surely that must create a great deal of inconvenience. When traders receive this document marked


"corrected reprint" and they wonder what has been altered, and they pick it up and put it side by side with the original document, it may take easily an hour or more to comb through this mass of detail and find out where the correction has been made. That is a very serious point.
There is another complaint I have to make. This corrected reprint simply bears the original date:
Order dated December 31, 1945.—This Order come into force on the 6th January, 1946
It does not mention the fact that this was not issued until some time about the end of April. It was not discovered, according to the evidence given before the Select Committee on Statutory Rules and Orders, that there was a mistake until about the end of April. I think that when this corrected reprint was issued it should have borne the date on it on which it was issued, because this may be of some importance in the courts at some time. It should be evident on the face of the document when it became available to the public, otherwise there may have to be considerable researches by the legal representatives of some unfortunate defendant, to find out when he might have known of the correction. But this corrected reprint was never laid.
This document had never been through the process prescribed in the Statute When earlier this week I looked in the box in the Library, which is the repository for the official copies of the Orders laid before Parliament, to my surprise I found two copies of the corrected reprint, although it had never been laid. To my greater surprise—and I think this is a rather striking coincidence—I found no copy at all of the original Order, which had been laid. It makes the researches of hon. Members rather difficult if we are unable to find, even in the sanctuary of Orders which have been laid before the Parliament, the place where they are supposed to be preserved, a document which was laid, but can find copies of documents which have not been laid. I am not blaming the Ministry for this, all I am saying is that it all adds to the confusion.
I should mention that although in that box I found no copy of the original Order, I found a copy not only of the original Order but of the corrected reprint in a

file somewhere else. But it is in that box that one looks to find an Order as originally laid, and where one finds Orders with dockets from the Ministry requesting the Clerk in the Votes and Proceedings Office to present the Orders before Parliament. It is rather difficult to find out exactly the position, and I think this is a matter which should be carefully considered in order that we can be quite clear what documents have been laid before Parliament and what have not.
It has already been ruled in regard to Order 1682 that were it necessary, it would be regarded as having been improperly laid. This is one of the links in the chain of amending Orders which are under discussion this evening. It is about half way in the chain, and is a very bad link, because it does not comply with the Statute in that, although the original was laid, it was subsequently corrected, and the corrected reprint was never laid.
The next Order is No. 158 of 1946. That does not appear to concern No. 733 so I can pass that by. However, 280 does. That deals with salmon. No. 449, which was dated 7th March, refers to the subject of canned meat, and so that clearly affects No. 733. In passing, I congratulate the Ministry on one small matter in regard to this Order. I find that it corrects an error previously made in a minor item. That is quite right. When there is an error to correct, it should be corrected by an Order laid before Parliament, and not by a correcting slip. If only the Ministry had stuck to that procedure they would never have got into all the trouble about No. 1682.
There was one further Order to which I should refer, and that is No. 601 which was laid on 23rd April. This clearly affects the position under 733, because it means part of the opening of the second Schedule. If hon. Members will look at 733 they will see that it concerns itself with that part of that schedule. I traced through this chain of amending Orders, amounting from first to last, from the original Order to the one to which I have now alluded, to one dozen. The House will appreciate that it is a rather exhausting business. I am sure the House will realise that in order to find out what is happening when an Order like this is made, it involves a considerable degree of research. It has involved me in a great deal of trouble, and I am fairly


familiar by now with the nature of Statutory Rules and Orders. What must happen to the poor small shopkeeper when he has to unravel these things without a library at his disposal, I cannot tell. Still less is it possible for the ordinary purchasing members of the public to appreciate their rights.
A new consolidating Order should be issued at frequent intervals—about every three months—and that should state clearly that all previous Orders were thereby cancelled. That consolidating Order should also clearly distinguish all changes made by it by means of some mark such as printing in italics the items changed. I think the Ministry owes a duty in this matter to the public and the traders. They have a difficult time to keep track of all the operations of the Ministry, and I think the Ministry, with a little trouble, could simplify life for them enormously. It is desirable that an ordinary member of the public who desires to know his rights should be able to ascertain them by reference to the documents -of the official authorities. Members of the House should not find it extremely difficult to understand what is happening.

Mr. Baldwin (Leominster): I beg to second the Motion.
I want to speak for the owner and the small one-man shop who may not have the highly intelligent trained mind of some hon. Members who sit on these benches. I appeal to the Minister to see whether something cannot be done to make these Orders more simple. There is an explanatory note to Order No. 733 which makes it look very simple. Is it as simple as that? The Order says:
In exercise of the powers conferred upon him by Regulation 55 01 the Defence (General) Regulations, 1939, as having effect by virtue of the Supplies and Services (Transitional
Powers) Act, 1945, (a). 
If one turns to (a), that is where the hunt begins. I looked at the bottom of the page and this is what I saw:
 (a) 9 &amp; 10 Geo. 6. c. 10; and S.R. &amp; O. 1945 (Nos. 1611 and 1615–25) 11, pp. 39, 45–56'
We then start with Order ran. I will not weary the House with the recital of the whole Order, which is one of four pages. The part which affects the small shopkeeper is one which says that he is liable

 on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the maximum amount provided in the next following paragraph, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or to both such fine or imprisonment, or, on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding the maximum amount so provided, or' to penal servitude for a term not exceeding seven years.
and so on. The next Order is about 16 pages very closely printed and is one which must be read throughout by the shopkeeper in order to find out what it means, and, when he has read it, I do not think he will know any more about it than I do.
(2A) A competent authority may, if it appears to that authority to be necessary so to do for' any of the purposes specified in Subsection (1) of Section one of the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, 1945, make or give, as respects any undertaking. orders or directions requiring the undertakers to carry on the undertaking in accordance with those orders or directions and, in particular, requiring the undertakers to employ upon such work and for such period as may be specified in the order or directions,
and so on. Order No. 891, which has been referred to, is a very bold document, enumerating varieties of canned fish, and 50 varieties of cereal breakfast foods, amongst which we have " Dalton's Cereal Flakes," " Uncle Mac's Puffed Wheat " and one which will appeal to hon. Members opposite—the " New World Breakfast Food." No, 1045 deals with canned meat and vegetables, No. 1138 with sausages and breakfast food of 50 varieties, No. 1417 with peas, beans and canned suet puddings, and No. 1514 with fats and cheese which is imported from Denmark. Now we come to No. 1682, of ten pages, where I am getting a bit warm. I find that the salmon I have been looking for is mentioned here, and that Grade 1, tall and flat, are 32 points. I think that is all right but I had better go on. I look at No. 158, which deals with anchovies, only to find that I have not much interest there. I now come to No. 280 and get a little bit warmer but more confused, because salmon, " Grade r, tall or flat,"Is mentioned and is 20 points. Order No. 249 deals with canned meat and vegetables and No. 601 very properly deals with Camembert cheese. I think the only thing that the shopkeeper can do is to write to his wholesaler and tell him that if he sends him any more salmon, he will throw it at his head. I think these Orders should be put into a reasonable form in which they can be understood.

10.28.p.m

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Edith Summer skill): Both the mover and seconder of this Prayer told the House that these Orders were confusing. After listening to the speeches, the House Will realise that the mover and seconder were themselves both confused. Neither of them, obviously, knew his case. Neither of them had thoroughly digested the Orders. For example, the mover said " Why cannot we have these changes which are included in each Order marked with an asterisk?", I would ask the hon. Member to look at every Order, and on it he will find an explanatory note in. which is given, very briefly, the changes in the points values made in each Order.

Sir J. Mellor: Will the hon. Lady allow me? I noted that, and referred to it, and I said that the explanatory notes are so very over-simplified that they gave no helpful information whatever.

Dr. Summer skill: I do not think the hon. Member can persuade me that he really meant that. The hon. Member said that, here, we had an Order setting out a list of changes, and he did not know which one of these foodstuffs had been changed, so far as the points value was concerned. I would ask the hon. Member to look at the footnote to the Order, where he will find the changes indicated. His remarks merely indicate that the hon. Member has not read the Order properly, that he has not been well briefed, and in fact that he does not know his case.

Sir J. Mellor: It is not only canned meats that are mentioned.

Sir William Darling:: Sausages, for example.

Dr. Summer skill: If the hon. Member consults his wife he will learn that every now and then the Ministry of Food puts certain new processed foods on the markets, and he will find what new points values are attached to them. He probably eats home-produced canned meats every day but does not recognise them. I must apologies to the House, for going into these matters. I had hoped that at this late hour I should not have had to go into details, but hon. Members have quoted all these Orders, and have suggested that the traders of the country have

been led astray by the Ministry of Food. I want to explain to the House that this is, after all a fairly simple matter, and that the traders are as conversant with these Orders as a doctor is with the British Pharmacopoeia,

Sir W. Darling: No.

Dr. Summer skill: I want to refer to Order 733, which has been quoted several times. This is the Order which fixed the points value of canned macaroni and for the new packs of home canned meat, as the hon. Member has noted, But it also alters the points values of certain packs of imported canned meats and salmon. Those home-produced canned meats are put into the points rationing scheme for the first time. But Part I of this Order, as the hon. Member pointed out, deals with meat and meat products, tongues, briskets and pressed beef, in respect of which a printing error occurred in the Order 1682, which of course the Ministry admits. That was dated December 31, 1945, and it was an amending Order to the Food (Points Rationing) Order of 1945. This new Order No. 1682 was concerned not only with tongues, briskets and pressed beef. It was in fact partially consolidating the Orders which had been made since the chief Order of 1945. I think the seconder of the Prayer asked for that. The Mover said he would like a consolidating Order every three months. He will find that Order 1682 which I think was distributed in December was a partially consolidating Order, and that Part I was concerned with meat and meat products in which the mistake occurred. This, of course, is not a guide to the traders. If the traders want to know where they are, they will refer to the main Order of July, 1945. The trader knows how these particular Orders work. He would not go to the Orders referred to by the hon. Members to find out about the points values of the meats because he would know they were included in the chief Order.

Sir J. Mellor: Surely the ordinary purchasing members of the public are. entitled to understand these Orders as well as the traders?

Dr. Summer skill: I would remind the hon. Member that the traders are the people chiefly concerned. The housewife does not go to the Stationery Office to get one of these Orders when she wants to find


out the points values of canned meats. The traders themselves get this information through their traders' journals. They, as hon. Members know, display the points values in their shops, and that is how the housewife learns these things.
In the reprinting of this Order, certain brackets were misplaced, and I agree that it could be read that there might be no points values for tongues, including chopped tongues, in containers, and, conversely, no points values for briskets and pressed beef. But, as I have already said, the trader would go to the original Order of July, 1945, to find out what were the real facts. The error was not detected in checking, and the Order so printed was laid before Parliament and distributed. It was generally assumed that no alteration of the points values of the items concerned was intended, and it was not until the following April that the mistake was discovered. After discussion with the Stationery Office, a corrected reprint was issued. Upon receiving these reprints from the Stationery Office, copies were sent on 25th April, in the usual way, to the officer in charge of the Votes and Proceedings Office with a request that the Order should he laid again. Copies were also sent to the Select Committee on Statutory Rules and Orders, as if it were a new Order. When the Order was so sent to be laid, my Ministry should have formally requested the withdrawal of the original Order, but the point was not raised, and the reprint of the Order was, in fact, not laid. That is the explanation for which the hon. Gentleman asks. On 25th May, Mr. Speaker ruled that these misplaced brackets constituted an error of substance—[AN HON. MEMBER: " Hear, hear."]—but in giving this Ruling he pointed out that, since the Order had been replaced—by Order No. 733 which the hon. Gentleman has prayed against tonight—and in view of the fact that this had been laid, there would be no point in re-laying the earlier Order. That is why it was not done.
I feel that I should tell the House what the procedure is in checking these Orders. So far as my Department is concerned, we have modified the procedure during the last few months. Hon. Members cheered when I said that the misplacing of the brackets in the original Order was an error of some substance. I want the House to know that this is all that occurred. On an ordinary

typewriter the bracket is a very small sign. The typist wanted to put a large bracket, so she used two small brackets. The typescript was sent to the Stationery Office and they thought that instead of one large bracket, it was two small brackets. The mistake thus occurred originally in the typescript. I think I am right in saying that a member of the Select Committee said that he would have thought it was meant for one large bracket, whereas the Stationery Office interpreted it as two brackets. At the date when the Order was made, December, 1945, the practice was for Orders to be signed in typescript before a draft was submitted for signature. It was checked both by the Secretaries to the Orders Committee of the Ministry and by the division of the Ministry concerned with promoting the Order, the latter being responsible, of course, for the accuracy of the Order. A copy of the Order as checked and signed was then sent to the Stationery Office for printing and, if the character of the Order was such that a check of the proof by the Department seemed desirable, the Stationery Office was requested to supply the Ministry with a proof which was checked again by the Secretaries of the Orders Committee.
In accordance with this procedure the final typed copy of Order 1682, in which the trouble occurred, was sent to the division concerned. Afterwards it was returned in proof and a few minor errors were detected by this checking. The error in bracketing was not. Under the new procedure we shall now check these Orders four times. They will be checked in typescript and when they are returned to us, they will be checked in proof by the Secretary of the Orders Committee, and then by the division, before they are signed. I do want the House to realise that the Ministry has made 2,076 Orders, of which 445 are still in force. Many of these Orders have had to be prepared and printed at very short notice, frequently as little as 24 hours. I think that in the circumstances we might claim a fairly good record when so few errors have occurred. The very nature" of the points rationing system necessitates frequent changes in values, and consequent amending Orders, sometimes as frequently as once a month. There are 267 kinds of points rationed foods, and total demand can only be equated to total supply in terms of points, by determining the points value of these individual items. These points values


have in fact been determined for a long period since the introduction of the scheme in 1941. The mover and seconder asked that these Orders should be consolidated and that we should not amend continually and so confuse the small grocer. The seconder picked up one Order after another and quoted them to the House. May I also say to the House that each one of these Orders—I think the one he quoted was 1048 dealing with canned peas, meats and vegetables—can be printed on one piece of paper. Would either the mover or the seconder say to the House that every time we altered the points value of a food, we should waste public money by producing a 14-page document?

Sir J. Mellor: I am sure that neither I nor the seconder suggested that for a moment. We suggested that there should be consolidation at frequent periods, say once every three months, when the Orders and the amending Orders made during that period should be collected and assimilated into an entirely new Order.

Dr. Summer skill: That is exactly what I am saying. We have to change the points value of foods, it may be in a period of three weeks. It is quite common to have a change every month in order that demand shall equal supplies. I reiterate and surely the House would agree with me, that if one page is enough, public money should not be spent on 14 pages.

Mr. Speaker: I think that the general question of consolidation is not in Order on this Motion. The Order in question is merely an amending Order. The general question of consolidation does not arise at the moment.

Sir J. Mellor: May 1, with great respect, Mr. Speaker, say that the whole purpose of my argument, and I submit that the argument was in Order, was that Order 733, the subject of this Motion, was the twelfth of a chain of Orders all interconnected and that this involved so much confusion that consolidation was desirable.

Mr. Speaker: I thought that the hon. Member was out of Order from the start, but I had only just taken the Chair and was not au fait with the situation. I say now that this argument is out of Order on this Prayer.

Dr. Summer skill: If that is your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, then practically the whole of the speeches of the mover and seconder of the Prayer appear to have been out of Order, because they addressed themselves chiefly to the need for consolidation. If I have not to prove that there is no need for consolidation every three months, I feel there is little more for me to say. I do hope that the House will agree that our very hard-pressed Ministry has done its best to keep both the House and the public informed on these matters.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Challen: May I say, Mr. Speaker, that despite your Ruling, I find it difficult to confine myself entirely to what is contained in this Order, and I wish particularly to refer to the explanatory note at the end. I venture to say that this is not an explanatory note at all, but an abuse of an undertaking given by the Government of some years ago, when the whole question of 'explanatory notes attached to Orders was raised. Some years ago—it will be remembered by the hon.Lady—there was an agitation to have some real explanation given of these matters when a new Order is produced to the House involving previous Orders. The idea of an explanatory note was then introduced. It was proposed that when there was a new Order which was rather obscure, and was not quite understandable to the public, or perhaps even to this House, there should be an explanation telling the public and the House exactly what the Order meant. Secondly, the proposition made and agreed to that, where several Orders were amended or added to, there should be a consolidating Order.
This Order puts neither of these precepts into practice. It is not consolidating, and it is not explanatory. The purpose of this Order, as set out at the end is:
To increase the points value of Canned Luncheon Meat and to fix points value for new packs of home produced Canned Meats; to reduce the points value of Group 3 salmon; to fix points value for Canned Macaroni; to increase the points value of certain kinds of Biscuits.
Everybody knows that already. Of course if one cares to check it up, or if a small trader cares to employ a lawyer and spend a large amount of money in order to understand what he can sell and what the buyer can buy, no explanation


is necessary. But I suggest that the Government Department in this case has slipped up between an explanatory note and a consolidating Order. The explanatory note is just ridiculous; it only tells us what we know. The hon. Lady has been reading for half-an-hour— [HON. MEMBERS: " No."]—a brief which has been given her by her Department. But we do not want to hear a brief from the hon. Lady's Department, and we do not want an explanatory note. We want an Order. The Government Department in this particular case are deceiving us. They are not playing the game. Years ago, it was agreed first, that there should be consolidation, and second, that there should be explanatory notes. Here we are left in the dark, and the hon. Lady just gives us a lot of bureaucracy which leads nowhere. That is really our attack upon this Order.

10.50 p.m.

Sir William Darling: I felt some hesitation in joining in this Debate, but I am encouraged by what you, Mr. Speaker, said on 28th May, recorded in HANSARD as follows:
I myself always find these Orders most difficult to understand I have always hoped that these Orders would be framed in language which an ordinary person like myself could understand."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th May, 1946: Vol. 423, c. 1003.]
Because I am always greatly impressed by and have full confidence in the integrity of your advice, Sir, I committed that extract from HANSARD to my diary. I had hoped that these observations, which penetrated the somewhat obtuse intelligence with which I am encumbered, would have more easily penetrated the intelligence of His Majesty's Government. I greatly grieve that the exhibition, if I may so call it, of the hon Lady tonight shows that she has taken no instruction from the wise words which I have just quoted. I shall oppose whenever I have the opportunity all these Orders because I believe this is an iniquitous system of conducting public business. I shall oppose all these Orders in the light of your guidance, Mr. Speaker. They are obscure, misleading, and objectionable, and they bring the Government, already in considerable discredit, into even greater discredit. The aim of this Order is to instruct the public and, conversely, it is to instruct shopkeepers. We are, indeed, a nation of shopkeepers, but we need to be even more intelligent than the hon. Lady

suggests if we are to understand this plethora of instructions. I myself am a shopkeeper, and I know some of the limitations of shopkeepers and the handicaps under which they labour, and I know that these documents, which come, as the hon. Lady tells us, not by tens, or twenties, but by hundreds, are a grievous burden. The hon. Lady tells us tonight that we need not go to these Orders, but should content ourselves with our trade papers. But the Board of Trade refuses to give additional paper to the trade papers to publish these Orders. That is the quandary in which the overburdened, unhappy shopkeeper is placed.
I understand that the hon. Lady belongs to the professional class, and the professional class are notoriously inconsiderate of the shop keeping class. But it is not the shopkeepers alone who have this grievous burden; it is a burden also on the general public. This document, if published in the homes of the people, would cause their mouths to water. I ask where today are such comestibles to be found as-
' tongues, including chopped tongues, canned boneless turkey sausage meat, minced meal loaf.
These comestibles are unknown, they are fables, they are fictions, they are mirages to the great majority of people. To produce a document of this character and tell the public that if they have 172 points they might have a container containing chopped tongue is a fantasy and a deception, I defy the hon. Lady to find for me any shop or store within ten miles of this House where any or all of these commodities can be obtained.

Mrs. Leah Manning: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if he would like to go for a walk with me as a housewife? I know where I can buy these things, not by spending 170 points, but by going to any large store where they take the goods out of a tin. I need not take him for a very long walk. If he would like to surrender some of 112 coupons I will buy the goods for him.

Sir W. Darling: I am grateful for the invitation of the hon. Lady; I have enjoyed many courtesies in this House but they seem to become more expensive than ever. If the hon. Lady's kind invitation means that I should walk into her parlour and purchase with eight coupons a tin of canned tongues—that, I understand, is her invitation—then I suggest that before


she practises her blandishments on me she should draw the attention of the Kitchen Committee to these comestibles. There is nothing on the menu in the House of Commons as appetising as what is described here. What is called " corned beef " here is a cold slice of beef with some hot curry sauce. If the hon. Lady knows of more attractive items than those which appear on the menu, will she invite the Chairman of the Kitchen Committee to go for a walk with her, and when he returns fully replete with the hon. Lady's society and what she has been able to purchase for him, I shall be happy to repeat the experiment. Meanwhile I repeat the challenge. Hon. Ladies and Gentlemen in this House know that the mere mention of these things would cause the mouths of the public to water. They cannot be obtained; they are a delusion and a snare; there is none in the shops, either of the co-operative societies or other retailers.
If these things are available then the arithmetic in this Order is faulty. You can purchase six pounds of ham loaf or veal loaf in a container for 172 points, but if you care to purchase either of them loose, they cost 32 points to the pound. That means that the retailer is getting 192 points on the whole transaction, which seems a rather unusual proposal. I will not go into any further detail on this subject; it is a succulent subject which I would like to pursue, but as presented by the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary, it is a barren and unprofitable subject, even though the discussion has been embellished by this invitation to go for a walk in search of canned rabbit. I decline to accept it, and I register my protest against an Order which is irrational, meaningless, and, in accordance with your learned and distinguished opinion, obscure and unintelligible and one which, on your judgment, Mr. Speaker, we might well advise this' House to reject.

Question put, and negatived.

BRITISH ARMY (MISSING MEN)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. Joseph Henderson. ]

10.59 P.m.

Mr. Shurmer: On the Estimates, on 29th March

last, the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) moved an Amendment that certain words be added at the end of Subsection (2) of Section 72 of the Army Act, which relates to the procedure of courts of inquiry dealing with soldiers absent without leave. This matter has been raised in this House on more than one occasion, and I am sure that many hon. Members on both sides of the House could give cases of men who have been posted as deserters but in regard to whom ample grounds could be given for a reopening of the inquiry, which, when all things were taken into consideration, would probably mean giving some concession to the unfortunate dependants of these men. I know it could not be done in all cases, but, surely, after a certain time had elapsed, inquiries could be made again into the cases of a special nature. The wives and children of these missing men, in many instances—and I know a number of them—I shall prove tonight, are existing on public assistance and charity. Many are quite young women, doomed to a life of uncertainty, and cannot get married again in the eyes of the law, yet believing in their own minds that their husbands have died in some way or another. Yet the Army are satisfied with one court of inquiry's evidence. Surely, after a time, say, 18 months or 2 years, if it can be justified, the case should be reopened and the character of the man taken into consideration. His family should be able to come forward and swear on oath as to their opinion, and the conduct of the man should be taken into consideration. His conduct in civilian life should be investigated, and everything taken into account regarding the family and its surroundings. Why should these women and children be subject to mental torture and be deprived of a contented social security in the future? All could be removed if only the War Office would act.
The hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary, in his reply to the question of missing men at the time, said many things that it is not necessary for me to repeat, but I would like to touch on one or two points before I bring my two cases forward. He said:
I am of the opinion that the Army Council Instruction recently issued informs and orders the court of inquiry not to declare a man an absentee unless there is evidence to show that he is an illegal absentee.


That seems to me not at all possible at one inquiry. On what grounds can a court finally decide? I do not think that a case can always be finally decided at one court of inquiry. There are probably many factors which, at the time, could not come to light and which, after a lapse of time, could be considered in the way to which I have previously referred. The Financial Secretary also said
 many men—I am afraid it is a substantial number—have disappeared. I would go so far as to say that most of them have disappeared by acts of their own '—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th March, 1946; Vol. 421, CS. 761 and 762.]
I am not prepared to believe that. I am prepared to stand that at any price from any member of any Government Department, because, whilst a number may be illegal absentees, it is not true of all of them. But should the genuine cases suffer because there are some illegal deserters? Certainly not. That is why I raise this question tonight on the cases of two men I have known since boyhood. I have lived amongst them, I knew their families, and I stand here tonight believing those men are not alive.
The Financial Secretary said, too, that hon. Members who are interested in cases should not have the slightest hesitation in bringing them to the notice of the Minister, and that he will always be willing to look into any case. I have brought along two cases of those I have watched grow up, two cases of boys who, I believe, were good husbands, good fathers, and would never commit an act which would deprive their wives and families of financial means or of their presence.
Let us take case number I, that of Corporal Sankey. He joined the Army in 1938, went to France, and was at Dunkirk. He was slightly shell-shocked and, after spending some time in this country, went out on D-Day. On 25th July, 1944, Sankey was brought back to this country, unable to walk or speak, severely shell-shocked. He was taken to a hospital at Chester-le-Street and he came on leave on 8th December, when he was far from well. His nerves were in a very bad state and, after being ten days on leave, was sent to the Gresford Colliery district to a convalescent camp. He was graded C.2 and, a few days afterwards, was sent to see a specialist in Shrewsbury, who found him suffering from a severe nervous condition. He went back to the Gresford Colliery

district. Nothing has been heard of that man since he walked out of the camp one morning. Let us look at the position of the poor woman and her two children. She received, on 12th October, 1944, just a statement to acknowledge the receipt of a letter saying that her husband
Is absent since 25th September, 1944.
On 8th November, 1944, she received a statement saying that she should get into touch with the officer at the Gresford Colliery district who might find out the where about of her husband. On 28th January, 1945, she was told that her husband was still absent. I then began fighting the case. The War Office wrote to me:
 You sent me the enclosed correspondence about Lance-Corporal L. J. Sankey, who has been missing from his unit. Every effort has been made to trace this soldier, but without success.
I would like the House to follow some of the following statements in this letter:
 A Court of Inquiry was held at the time of the soldier's being declared a deserter,
Absent first, a deserter afterwards—they do not appear to know which-
In September, 1944, to decide whether his absence could be attributed to any circumstances beyond his control—particularly if there was any reason to suppose that he had fallen down one of the disused mine shafts, of which there are many near this station at Gresford.
This was a shell-shocked man, who was continually having blackouts while home on leave, who probably walked out of the camp, his mind confused, and who, while wandering, might have fallen down one of these disused mineshafts. Were there a hundred, or even 500 troops sent out? If an individual, the son or husband of a woman, went alone to North Wales on holiday tomorrow and the woman told the police that he was missing, several hundred Scouts and all sorts of people would search every nook and corner of the district where he was missing.
Here is another curious thing:
In accordance with normal practice, the proceedings of the Court have now been destroy ed; "—
after one enquiry into the man's condition, or while a man is absent from his unit—
but we asked the President of the Court to give us what details he could. While he could


not remember the exact circumstances of the case, he said that he had no reason to suppose that Lance-Corporal Sankey was absent because of sickness or any other misadventure. The only member of the Court—the only other officer in a position to give any information about the proceedings—was killed in action. The civil and military police authorities have been notified, and all instructions about notification of absentees have been carried out
I have sat on the bench in Birmingham as a magistrate during the last two or three years, and men have come before us who have been absent from their units for 12 or 18 months. They have stolen something, or have made a false move, and have been found with illegal identification cards. I do not believe that a shell-shocked man could wander around this country for almost two years without being picked up somewhere or other. I fully believe that he is not alive.
I now take the case of Private Renshaw, who leaves a wife and two children. I have received a letter today that his wife has had to be taken away suffering from a nervous breakdown owing to the worry of the position, not knowing what has become of her husband; in fact, believing he is dead. Of Private Alfred Renshaw, on 13th February, 1945, she was told:
Information has been received—your husband is absent without leave from his unit.
On 7th July, 1945, she was informed that he was "In a state of desertion." Again, on 5th September, he was still reported as being absent without leave. What is the position of this man? Extensive enquiries were made, states the War Office, in C.M.F.,
 but the only information that has been brought to light is that Private Renshaw reported to the British Military Mission in Hungary at 5 p.m., on 3ot h December, 1944.
He was absent within 12 hours of reporting to a British Military Mission in a country where, I suggest, no man could find his way about in a few hours. I am sorry we have no more evidence, but here is the case of a man who, I firmly believe, went out from that camp and probably was shot or made away with in a country where things were not too good. I am sorry to keep the House at this late hour, but I suggest that these cases are really urgent and I beg of the Minister to reconsider the whole matter, and these two cases especially, and to approach them in a humane manner. I am sure that all hon. Members of this House, from their

experience of the Minister, believe that he is being humane in dealing with these cases, and I have no complaint to make regarding the cases which I have submitted to him.
Here is an opportunity to let these two women, and, probably, many others, know that they can live a life of security. Should they live on public assistance? Should every such man be treated as a deserter? Should a court of inquiry meet, declare its findings and then destroy the papers and never bother again to go into the facts of the case? I believe that Renshaw and Sankey are not alive, and I urge the Minister to give these two women the notification of the presumed death of their husbands, so that they may receive the pension and live in security, as they have a right to do.

11.11 p.m.

Mr. Blackburn: I am sure the House is greatly indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Shurmer) for the sincere and vigorous manner in which he has championed the cause of the families of two soldiers whom he has known personally. A point of considerable importance, in the way of principle, is raised by this Adjournment Debate. The allowances which are made to wives and families of soldiers called up are, I think, regarded in this House as a right, and not as temporary allowances given at the pleasure of the State. They replace sums of money which the fathers or husbands would themselves have received if their children had not been called up. it should be, in my submission, a principle that these sums of money are not taken away by the State unless the State is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the soldier has not contributed, by his wilful act, to a state of circumstances in which the State is entitled to take away these sums or allowances.
We have had two cases given to the House tonight. The first was a case in which, on medical evidence, it was apparent that the soldier had already had a severe breakdown and may have suffered from less of memory. The second was a case which, if I may introduce a controversial note which might appeal to hon. Members opposite, occurred beyond the Iron Curtain. It is a case from which it is apparent that an individual may disappear without his being responsible


for it. If hon. Members opposite accept that, as I gather they do, then, surely, it is equally apparent that it is entirely wrong that the State should stop allowances to wives and children because a soldier disappears in circumstances in which it is not proved beyond reasonable doubt that the soldier was responsible for his own disappearance.
It was apparent from the correspondence which the hon. Member had been good enough to show me that in both cases the decision had been taken by the State. During the period of the war, I served for a time as an Adjutant, and at one time a commanding officer said to me that one could make a man do anything they liked in the Army, if one went the right way about it, except make him have a child. Many of us know that this experience is perfectly true of the Army. I do not quarrel at all with the fact that, under the Army Council instructions, a man who is absent for a time becomes the subject a court of inquiry, which has to declare him absent for the purpose of the Army's records. I submit—and it is a point of principle which I hope will command support—that whatever the Army may do in respect of its records in relation to a soldier, no decision will be taken adversely against the family of the soldier in respect of allowances unless it is established beyond reasonable doubt that the soldier himself was responsible for the act on which he is charged. I would conclude with this appeal. I ask my hon. Friend, who has been reasonable on similar occasions in the past, to give a specific assurance to the House tonight, that no curtailment of the allowances of any family will take place in respect of the disappearance of a soldier, unless it is made absolutely plain, Leyond reasonable doubt, that the soldier has been absent owing to his own fault.

11.22 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I hope the Financial Secretary is going to tell the House that in the two cases to which his attention has been drawn so eloquently, he is going to order fresh courts of inquiry. These two cases seem to me to raise exactly the same issue of principle as that raised by hon. Members on both sides the House in the Committee stage of the Army Annual Bill, that is to say, the class of case in

which there is no positive evidence whether the man is illegally absent or not. Indeed from the letter from the Financial Secretary's Department, which was read, it seems to me that a tacit, and indeed a specific admission has been made, that this is the state of affairs. That being so, I must call in aid the Financial Secretary's own statement in the Army Annual Bill Debate—that positive evidence should be brought forward to show that the man is illegally absent. If the letter means anything at all, then certainly in the case of the man in Hungary, there was no such positive evidence. It the Financial Secretary wishes to be consistent, and I am sure he does, in order to be fair, he must promise to have these two cases reconsidered, and I hope that he is going to get up in a moment and say so. There is only one other matter I would raise, I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not going to reconsider only these cases which are raised on the initiative of hon. Members of this House. There must be many cases where members of the public have not the necessary contacts with their Member, and perhaps have no opportunity to raise a case. I hope that in those cases the Financial Secretary will see that reconsideration is given to the many such cases in which real injustice is being done to the widow and orphans of Service men and to the memory sometimes of a gallant soldier.

11.24 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Bellenger): I could not give any undertaking that we. would go through the War Office files of all those who have been declared deserters by courts of inquiry, because, if we tried to do that, I am afraid our task would be an impossible one. The whole point is one of evidence. It has been said both in the Debate on the Army Annual Bill and again tonight that the question should be one of positive evidence that the man has become a deserter by his own act, and my hon. Friend, who I believe has some legal knowledge, will know of course that in courts of law the evidence has to be considered. The courts of inquiry are set up for the purpose of considering the facts in so far as they can be ascertained. Let me say at the outset of my remarks tonight, as I said on the Debate on the Army Annual Bill, that the War Office is always prepared to consider, or to reconsider,


individual cases. If evidence, or prima facie evidence, is brought to our notice, we will certainly look into those cases and, indeed, on the occasion when I spoke last on this matter, I mentioned the case that an hon. Member of this House had brought to the notice of my right hon. Friend who, on the evidence, had the proceedings of the court of inquiry quashed, and the man who had been declared a deserter was declared missing, I believe. Without going into details—which I was able to do at greater length on the last occasion than I am able to do tonight—it would be as well if I read that part of the Army Council Instruction which I mentioned in my last speech when this matter was brought to the attention of the House. Army Council Instruction No. II, 1946, gives certain directions to those who convene courts of inquiry, and I think I might read this relevant passage if the House will permit me.
Those provisions '—
that is, the provisions under the Army Act—
 emphasise that, before making their declaration the court must be satisfied, after inquiry in the prescribed manner, that the soldier, absented himself without leave or without sufficient cause.
Obviously, it is left to the court of inquiry which is in possession, as nobody else could be in possession, of the facts, in so far as they are ascertainable at the time, to decide how they are going to arrive at their decision. It is not for the War Office, quite remote from the circumstances concerning the case, to come to a decision. It must, obviously, be within the power of the court itself, as, indeed, the law of this land is interpreted by the various courts of the land, in possession of all the facts, to come to a decision.

Mr. Blackburn: Mr. Blackburnrose

Mr. Bellenger: I have only a limited time and, if my hon. Friend will allow me, I want to try and give as much information as I can on the matter. I would like to proceed with the Army Council Instruction:
It is therefore clearly the duty of the court in the interests of the soldier —
and I would like hon. Members to take note of that—
To take into consideration any evidence 
character and anything else—
That they believe to be available,"—

Mr, Blackburn: There never is any such evidence.

Mr. Bellenger: Hon. Members may care to interpret it as they like; I prefer to interpret it as I like. I will continue:
Tending to show that the absence may have been due to some sufficient cause, such as illness, misadventure or, particularly in the case of a soldier stationed abroad, foul play."—
and this is the case raised by my hon. Friend tonight—
It is also the duty of the officer assembling the court to ensure that there is placed before the court any relevant material on such matters as he knows to he available.
I am only going to say, in relation to the two cases brought to the attention of the House tonight, that we have looked into them as far as we can and on the available evidence, we are not able to alter the decision of the court" of inquiry.

Mr. Blackburn: Mr. Blackburnrose—

Mr. Shurmer: Mr. Shurmer rose

Mr. Bellenger: My hon. Friend wants me to answer his case tonight and, as I have a very limited time, he must allow me to develop my case as far as I can.

Colonel Wigg: On a point of Order. Is it not usual for a Minister to give way when an hon. Member wishes to make a point?

Mr. Bellenger: That is so, but either the time of the House can be taken up by hon. Members developing their case, or they can permit me to answer their case. I will say this, as an illustration of what I may call the principle which has been raised by two of my hon. Friends and the hon. Gentleman opposite. Quite by coincidence, the day before yesterday I was replying to one of the Ministers who had written to me about the case of a soldier who had been declared a deserter. I looked into that case very particularly and I found this, which illustrates the point I want to make. A certain soldier was declared by the War Office to be missing after Dunkirk. One can well understand that, after the confused circumstances of Dunkirk. I may say that I myself was at Dunkirk, so I can well understand it. Two years later evidence was brought that the man was not missing, but was a deserter, and a court of inquiry declared that he was a deserter two years after the War Office had declared him missing, with all the


consequences that followed in relation to allowances. I do not know what the evidence was that came before the court of inquiry; I am not concerned with that at the moment. I should have thought that at that time if any hon. Member had pressed that case in the House, the War Office would have been told "Why declare this man a deserter?"That man is now on his way home from Australia. He has re-appeared. It goes to show that it is not in all these cases when the soldier is declared a deserter that the War Office has made a mistake. Any evidence that is brought to the attention of the War Office which will shake a decision of a court of inquiry will be considered.

Mr. Blackburn: Will the man be given the benefit of the doubt?

Mr. Bellenger: It is not a question of giving a soldier the benefit of the doubt, but of assessing whether a man is a deserter on the evidence available. I think that the extracts I have read from this Army Council Instruction tonight have shown that courts of inquiry must

take into account all the evidence available—some of it meagre I admit—and then come to their decision. Unless hon. Members can shake that decision by any other evidence they can bring forward, or unless any other evidence is brought to bear, then I think the decision of the Court of Inquiry must stand. I admit that what follows from that decision may cause hardship to the dependants of the man. [HON. MEMBERS: "It does."] If I may use an expression used by the Leader of the Opposition the other day, soldiers do not disappear through a trapdoor as easily as hon. Members seemed to suggest.

It being half an hour after the conclusion of Business exempted from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House, MR. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order, as modified, for this Session by the Order made upon 16th August.

Adjourned at Twenty-nine Minutes past Eleven o'Clock.